Tom Waits has released ‘The Fly’, a new spoken-word piece and the B-side to his recent collaboration with Massive Attack. The track is notable as only his second original recording since 2011’s Bad as Me, pairing his distinctive gravelly delivery with a humorous, hostile meditation on flies and human folly.

Co-written with his wife Kathleen Brennan, the four-and-a-half-minute piece arrives with an animated lyric video illustrated by Waits’s son Casey. It follows ‘Boots on the Ground’, Waits’s protest song with Massive Attack; both tracks will feature on a preorder-only 180g ‘EcoSonic’ 12-inch vinyl single, with proceeds intended for civil-rights and community-advocacy organisations.