Watch: Tom Waits – “Hell Broke Luce”

Tom Waits has been hinting at something meant to arrive August 7th. Fans avidly debated what his cryptic clues – among them Waits disguised as a pirate and nebulous quotes – could mean. Some hoped for a tour, the more optimistic prayed for a new album. That was unlikely, considering last year’s Bad As Me was Waits’ first album in several years.

It was a safer bet to assume it had something to do with that LP. Lo and behold, it was a video for “Hell Broke Luce,” far from a disappointment, considering the unique nature of the visuals. Waits drags around a house in an odd post-apocalyptic world, occasionally pursued by shark submarines – the works.

Waits spoke on the video, joking and enlightening:

“As most of you guessed, it’s a tour…a tour de force!

Matt Mahurin has created an apocalyptic war dream to accompany the song HELL BROKE LUCE. Kathleen and I envisioned it as an enlightened drill sergeant yelling the hard truths of war to a brand new batch of recruits. The video grew from the gnawing image of a soldier pulling his home, through a battlefield, at the end of a rope.

I think you will agree, it’s uplifting and fun.”