THERE is only one word elastic enough to describe Tom Waits and that's "beat". His voice, more often than not, sounds beat, as if it's been drained of all energy. Often, too, he is singing about beats; some are deadbeats, others are upbeat, still others are beaten down, by whatever life has thrown at them. One of my favourite performances by Waits is of Jesus's Blood Never Failed Me Yet by Gavin Bryars, when Waits takes the part of a tramp singing the same words over and over. He sounds truly beat on that.

But then there is Waits at his most beatific and content, on a song like The Heart Of Saturday Night from the album of the same name. Here, his voice is beaten gold, shorn of roughness. He is a man with money in his pocket and hope in his heart. Simple pleasures like "the crack of pool balls" and the honk of an Oldsmobile are on his mind.

Of course, Waits has always had a lot in common with the Beats, Jack Kerouac in particular, not least his lyrical stream-of-consciousness. Read On The Road and you'll find a mine waiting to be excavated by Waits. Whole paragraphs of Kerouac's novel could be translated into songs by him. He has long had an affinity with beatniks and their unconventional, unstructured way of living. In fact, he has often empathised with anyone out of the mainstream.

Waits's characters tend towards the margin; barflies, derelicts, hobos, failures, trailer trash, jailbirds, hookers. He likes dark places, shadows, low lights, moods. Strange to relate, then, that he was brought up by two schoolteachers in Pomona, California. He soon made up for that, though, and claims to have slept through the 1960s. Perhaps he was merely tuning his voice, which sounds as if it was invented to make dirty phone calls.

Whatever it's like, it is an instrument he has adapted brilliantly to his needs. Like a poet, which he is, he writes songs with a particular voice in his head, living and believing a part. Think of Christmas Card From A Hooker In Minneapolis. Waits doesn't make any effort to feminise his voice. If anything, it is more liquid and raspy than ever, because what he's doing is have Charlie, the recipient of the card and the hooker's former lover, read it out to himself. That's clever.

It's also typical of Waits, who has this uncanny ability to become another person, to distance himself from his self. You could call it Brechtian, though instinctual is probably nearer the truth.

But that's too airy-fairy. Put him on and wherever you are becomes somewhere else: a diner, a bar-room, Kentucky, the arms of someone you want to be with. At his best what Tom Waits does is make our hearts beat that little bit faster.

Neil Labute, film-maker and author Song: How's It Gonna End
Picking a single fruit from the orchard that is Tom Waits's work is nearly impossible, but if pushed I would chose How's It Gonna End from his Real Gone album of 2004. There are songs that I find musically richer - the cool, jazzy downtown funk of Everything Goes To Hell or the erratic pomp of God's Away On Business - but none move me as much as the simple progressions of this musical lament. I think that Waits also stumbles upon the answer to one of art's (and, by extension, life's) greatest questions: we go along for the ride in this horrible, wonderful world to see what's up ahead, just around the corner, and no-one has written with more purity and sheer gothic beauty about life's crazy journey than Mr Waits.

Ian Rankin, author Song: Step Right Up, among others
I love the wit of Step Right Up, the narrative power of Twenty Nine Dollars, the creepiness of What Is He Building In There?, the surreal humour of The Piano Has Been Drinking ... I'm not sure one song can sum up everything that's great about Tom Waits, so put those four in a blender and pour me a glass.

Tony Parsons, author and critic Song: Downtown Train
My pick is Downtown Train - the closest Waits has ever got to a love song. It was great when Rod Stewart did it, it was great when Waits did it, and it is such a great, stirring, heartbroken hymn to the night that it is difficult to imagine anyone doing a bad version of it.

Mark Cousins, film-maker and author Song: Invitation To The Blues
This plays over the open titles of Nic Roeg's film Bad Timing, and breaks my heart every time I see it. He croaks, "And you feel like Jimmy Cagney, she looks like Rita Hayworth", which sums up the agony of boys looking at girls. I knew this film before I was ever in love and so I assumed that its elegy, its voice, those images of Theresa Russell, would be what love would feel like. The truth is that love's sunnier than Waits's song, but when the clouds roll in, Waits's insights are devastating.

Eddi Reader, musician Song: Johnsburg, Illinois
I love many songs and albums and a great deal of everything else that Tom Waits gets involved with. If I had to choose a favourite though I would probably reach for Johnsburg, Illinois: "There's a space on my arm where I've written her name next to mine." I love his ability to create beauty out of the junkyard of humanity, with language both simple and poetic and music both familiar and challenging but never less than uplifting, healing even. And I love that he doesn't play any bullshit business games. He has inspired the outsiders in music for years by not reaching for chart approval, touring only when he feels like it, recording when he feels like it. I love how he has done his thing for years, quietly crafting, constructing and being committed to the beauty and ugliness in the life and love that he experiences.

Pat Kane, author and musician Song: Take It With Me
When the mother of my children introduced me to Tom Waits, as a student in the 1980s, Martha was always the guaranteed tearjerker. Until Mule Variations's Take It With Me. In this four-line bridge is all the wisdom about living well that you'll ever need: "Children are playing at the end of the day/Strangers are singing on our lawn/There's got to be more than flesh and bone/All that you've loved is all that you own." Now where's those goddamn tissues ...

Hue And Cry's new album Open Soul is out in September www.hueandcry.co.uk

Jim Sclavunos, drummer with The Bad Seeds and Grinderman Song: Strange Weather
Tom Waits the performer, the innovator and the hobo-styled theatricalist often commands more attention than Tom Waits the writer of classic songs. Likewise, his recordings are so laden with idiosyncratic instrumentation that it can sometimes distract from his material's simple beauty. Sometimes cover versions of Tom Waits tunes - such as The Blind Boys Of Alabama's gospel blues version of Down In The Hole or Bruce Springsteen's straightforward but affecting treatment of Jersey Girl (a song he has practically made his own) - bring out surprising aspects of melody and lyrics that were there all along, but become enriched in the unfamiliar context of another singer's rendition. I think the ultimate combination, though, the very best of all possible Waits's interpretations, is Marianne Faithfull's cover of Strange Weather. Faithfull puts the song across with all the world-weary, bleary-eyed, gruff-voiced soul of Waits himself, but also brings to it a distinctly European elegance and decadence.
Grinderman play Hydro Connect on August 30Iain Banks, author Song: The Piano Has Been Drinking
It would have to be The Piano Has Been Drinking. I make no apologies for choosing what must rank as a relatively light and minor component of Mr Waits's vast oeuvre; it's nearly as dark, gnarled and bizarre-character-filled as his more serious work and is one of the very few proper rock/alternative/whatever-weird-category-you-need-to-invent-specifically-to-cover-TW's-style songs that can actually make people laugh out loud. For that alone, sir, I salute you (FX sound of metaphorical hat being doffed).

Kris Drever, folk musician Song: Hoist That Rag
Hoist That Rag from the 2004 album Real Gone is a filthy song with a touch of South American rhythm about it, the sound a samba band might make had they got all their instruments from the junkyard. I was introduced to Tom Waits's music when I was 14, but this song is from his late period and whilst I love the early classics, I think he actually gets better and better with age. It features another hero of mine, Marc Ribot, on guitar.
Kris Drever's DVD Live In Glasgow is out now on Reveal/Navigator

Will Gregory, musician with Goldfrapp Song: Tom Traubert's Blues
I first heard Tom Waits through his version of Waltzing Matilda. He turned a sing-a-long folk melody into an epic tragedy akin to Gavin Bryers's Jesus Blood. His voice of course was the thing that made the biggest impression - it sounded like his vocal cords were made of pavements slept on by generations of tramps. A man who had possibly shared moonshine under the stars with Charles Bukowski, Harry Partch, Woody Guthrie and Moondog before being chipped out of a frozen gutter and moved on to a soup kitchen with George Orwell. It was rather a shock when one realised what a young feller actually owned this ancient-sounding voice. A freak of nature and possibly some degree of artifice, but none the less powerful for that. A man who could have reached rock bottom so soon was obviously on some accelerated life programme, and was bringing back messages from the depths that were ageless. Bone Machine also had a big influence on me because of the sound - cold corridors of scrap iron. Again artifice because it takes a lot of suss to make a tightly organised collection of places and instruments sound so ramshackle, and vice versa. A lot of bravery to put the mic next door to the recording. An early 1990s antidote to the antiseptic 1980s.
Goldfrapp play Hydro Connect on August 31 JOHN McCUSKER, folk musician Song: Time
I first heard the song Time on Tom Waits's live album from 1988, Big Time. I bought it on vinyl second-hand and loved the whole record. There are brilliant versions of Way Down In The Hole, and I love Clap Hands, but I remember getting to the last song and thinking it was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard I think the scratches on the vinyl made it even more magical. I remember at the time having no idea what the song meant and I'm still not much closer to understanding it. For me the girl in the song symbolises death and time is slipping away from her. There is something amazingly sad about the song, the line at the end: "... put a candle in the window and a kiss upon her lips" always gets me. Every line is a total gem, I love the way he describes the weather: "... the wind was making speeches and the rain sounds like a round of applause". I was lucky to get to see Tom Waits play live the last time he was in London. He's a genius.

Tom Waits plays the Playhouse, 18-22 Greenside Place, Edinburgh, on Sunday 27 and Monday 28 July