Walking Spanish is a song by Tom Waits from his 1985 album Rain Dogs. The lyrics tell a noir street story about a man with a homemade “special” and a glass full of sand, weaving through a seedy urban world full of Broadway lights and colorful characters who appear in his hallways. The refrain, “walking spanish down the hall,” frames his restless wanderings and the sense that he will be somewhere else when the call comes. Musically the track blends blues, jazz and cabaret influences with Waits’s street-poetic storytelling, creating a vivid vignette of poverty, displacement and oddball humanity. Characters like Mason, Latella, Blind Jack Dawes and Pilate appear in the dreamlike, surreal imagery that characterizes the tune.
