Scarlett Johansson reveals where she gets her music inspiration

Scarlett Johansson appears to have taken musical inspiration from the 80s as she reminisced about some of her favourite music during a KCRW interview in 2009.

The Lost in Translation star, 38, told the host that her favourite song was Tom Waits’, Burma-Shave.

“When I was about 12, a friend of mine and I, we would take trips. We would take driving trips with her father,” she recalled.

“We would drive to Maine or wherever from New York, but long driving trips and stuff like that. And her dad listened to all different kinds of music, a very eclectic group of different types of artists and everything, but he loved Tom Waits.”

She went on to detail that they would “often only listen to Tom Waits for hours and hours and hours” as they were driving. Johansson added that she and her friend thought the music was “weird” but it eventually turned into an inspiration for the Black Widow star.

“I think [the words] really appealed to us as kids, because they are beautiful stories and strange stories and the sounds can often be, I don’t know, there’s a certain big top quality to some of the songs,” she described.

“And then others are just really dark and spooky, and some are just beautifully melodic. We just ended up – after such a long drive and only listening to Tom Waits the whole weekend and the drive back and everything – we both were completely mad for Tom Waits, and I’ve listened to him ever since then.”

Johansson came out with her debut studio album back in 2008, which was inspired by Tom Waits.