Soon after releasing Rain Dogs, Tom threw himself into a new form of expression. In between a couple of arty film roles, he worked on expanding one transitional track from Swordfishtrombones into a full-fledged musical play—with actors and everything—telling the story of the rise and fall of a shifty guy named Frank. By the time it became an album, Franks Wild Years had evolved from the story as seen briefly on a Chicago stage to a hard-to-follow album that relied more on sound than narrative.
A key part of his arsenal now included a miniature bullhorn, which combined with his falsetto to make the lyrics even raspier. “Hang On St. Christopher” opens the album in another automobile, giving way to the first of two versions of “Straight To The Top”. “Blow Wind Blow” has a clean production for a change, but the Captain Beefheart influence turns “Temptation” into a nightmare. The first thing approaching a classic is “Innocent When You Dream”, first heard in a “barroom” arrangement to accent its singalong quality. “I’ll Be Gone” relies too much on a rooster for its percussion. “Yesterday Is Here” is nice and simple, mostly around his own reverbed guitar, but then he wanders around the flute setting on a Mellotron for about a minute to bury the melody of “Please Wake Me Up”, eventually giving way to a much dreamier organ solo. “Franks Theme” (for some reason he doesn’t rate an apostrophe) ends the first act with a prayer for a decent night’s sleep.
“More Than Rain” has been more effectively covered by others; here it sounds like he’s singing along to an acetate. “Way Down In The Hole” is a preacher’s rant over a single bass line and the same two saxophone notes, but with wonderfully typical Marc Ribot guitar solos. He does a wonderful attempt at Sinatra phrasing, and nearly the tone, on the “Vegas” version of “Straight To The Top”, which builds up to a grand crescendo before the nightmare returns on the organ and the Ethel Mermanisms of “I’ll Take New York”. It’s never been clear what “Telephone Call From Istanbul” has to do with anything, but it wins points for the following couplets: “Will you sell me one of those if I shave my head/Get me out of town is what Fireball said/Never trust a man in a blue trench coat/Never drive a car when you're dead”. We also like the too-short organ solo. “Cold Cold Ground” seems like a title he would have used already, but here it’s a nice little country song. He finally returns to the piano for the hapless “Train Song”, and “Innocent When You Dream” returns on a 78 to remind us of all that’s been lost.
It could be that the parts of Franks Wild Years are greater than the whole, but coming after the excellence of his last two albums, it was something of a letdown. We were told there was a story in between the songs, but how Frank went from burning his house down to bragging of fame and fortune before dying on a park bench doesn’t come through. (Plus, he’d already summed up the whole arc better and briefer in “Christmas Card From A Hooker In Minneapolis”.)
Tom Waits Franks Wild Years (1987)—2½
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