Tom Waits 23: Bad As Me

As with each of the albums Tom Waits has put out over the last 20 years, critics fell all over Bad As Me, starting with superlatives like “tour de force” and working up from there. We won’t go that far, but to say that unlike his more conceptual work of late, it’s more in keeping with Bone Machine and Mule Variations in being just a collection of songs (though we do miss the piano ballads that still stand out from the latter, and still don’t subscribe to the fawning over the former).

There’s no gimmick this time, save what he swears was his wife’s request that he do some short songs for a change. And he does, beginning with the sputtering “Chicago”. “Raised Right Men” has a decent message and even chord changes, but both are camouflaged by the maddening tabla Tom taps for most of the track. After the meandering falsetto of “Talking At The Same Time”, “Get Lost” is a welcome slice of rockabilly, especially given the lazy feel of “Face To The Highway”. “Pay Me” is a pretty accordion-based ballad, with a nice piano coda, setting up the tropical croon in “Back In The Crowd”.

The title track mixes metaphors and dirty blues, which get even dirtier in “Kiss Me”, with the effects of a scratchy record decorating this cousin of “Blue Valentines”. “Satisfied” got the most attention upon release, due to its shout-outs to “Mr. Jagger and Mr. Richards”, and the appearance of the latter himself on the track. Keith sings harmony on “Last Leaf”, the weeper that follows. Despite its military imagery, “Hell Broke Luce” follows well on from similarly barked nursery rhymes on Rain Dogs. “New Year’s Eve” ends the album on with a waltz, but the inclusion of a chorus of “Auld Lang Syne”—not once but twice—is a tad gratuitous.

For no real reason other than to get fans to buy a copy of the album that wouldn’t fit in their racks too well, Bad As Me was also made available in a limited edition with the dimensions of a hardcover book and a “bonus” disc with three more songs. “She Stole The Blush” would have been welcome on the main album; the same could be said of “Tell Me”, which fits the “tropical” mode of “Back In The Crowd”. Seashore noises also appear on “After You Die”, more metaphors that don’t say much, in possibly a rough draft for “Face To The Highway”.

The good thing about Tom Waits music is that some of the better songs reveal themselves over time, and maybe that will happen with these. Either way, it’s nice to have a Waits album that doesn’t require a lot of attention, and for that, Bad As Me gets the job done.

Tom Waits Bad As Me (2011)—3