A Modest Proposal

[The following is a letter I have sent to Tony Bennett's management. I'd love to see this happen.]

Dear Ms. Weiner:

I'm hoping you can get this idea in front of either Tony or Danny Bennett, as I think it's got some incredible potential.

Tony Bennett's legacy has now spanned two centuries, and he continually gains new generations of fans. He's a respected interpreter of some great American songwriters, but I've noticed that even on his newest album, he's still going back to the well from the pre-rock era. There is, however, one American songwriter that I don't believe he's ever covered, and that's Tom Waits.

Just the first two Waits albums, Closing Time (1973) and The Heart Of Saturday Night (1974), are full of songs that would be a tremendous fit for Mr. Bennett's voice, from saloon songs to snappy jazz. And further into the Waits catalog are even more songs that would do justice to his talent, and vice versa; "Tom Traubert's Blues", "Foreign Affair", "Kentucky Avenue", "Ruby's Arms", "Take It With Me" and "Time" are just the first handful that come to mind. (Hey, if he even wants to tackle the likes of "Cemetery Polka", "16 Shells From A Thirty-Ought-Six" or "Pasties & A G-String", more power to him.)

I am not a salesman or an entrepreneur, just a music fan and writer. This idea came to me from a discussion years ago with a friend, and as time goes on I'm amazed that nobody else has suggested it. I'm sure that if you asked his friend Elvis Costello, even he would agree that "Bennett Sings Waits" would be a hit. (Just don't let him take credit for the idea, unless he's already suggested it, in which case what are we waiting for?)

Thank you for your time and consideration. I'd love to hear even one song in this vein, and certainly before Barry Manilow does it first.

Sincerely,
Everybody's Dummy

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

Tom Waits 22: Glitter And Doom

In the decade since “returning” to music with Mule Variations, Tom toured occasionally, usually for short stretches and hitting cities somewhat out of the way or simply missed the last time. With a lot of material to choose from, Glitter And Doom Live just scratches the surface of the 21st-century Tom Waits concert experience, not least because you can’t hear the unique sight of the man stomping away at his microphone stand, kicking up clouds of talcum powder, or contorting his figure to “direct” the band.

Still, it’s a smooth program, culled from various dates but mixed to sound continuous. With older son Casey manning the kit, and younger son Sullivan turning up on clarinet, the band nicely translates the rusty, dusty sound of the albums to the big stage. The selections from Real Gone particularly improve here, emerging as songs as opposed to just sounds.

They’re not all clang, boom and steam, of course; “Fannin Street”, “Lucky Day” and “I’ll Shoot The Moon” provide some quieter moments, while “Live Circus” and “Story” provide welcome detours of humor. If that’s not enough, an entire second disc is devoted to a single track combining a half hour of various tall tales, bad jokes and hypothetically restrictive local laws taken from preludes to his solo piano numbers, ending with a quick run through “Picture In A Frame”.

As with most Tom Waits albums, this will not provide a bolt of understanding for the unconverted. His voice is raspy, the melodies are basic and some people just don’t get him. But if he doesn’t come to your town anytime soon, Glitter And Doom will have to do.

Tom Waits Glitter And Doom Live (2009)—3

Tom Waits 21: Orphans

Best described by the man himself as “a bunch of things that fell behind the stove while making dinner,” Orphans is a three-CD set presenting a grab bag of new music and extracurricular activities. Subtitled Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards, it separates the music into those three, somewhat descriptive categories. Because it offers nothing from the ‘70s, this is not the ultimate Waits rarities collection. However, it does offer such nuggets as his wonderful dwarfs-on-strike arrangement of “Heigh-Ho”, and a whole pile of songs previously hiding on movie soundtracks, like the mandolin-scented “Bottom Of The World”, his cover of “Sea Of Love” and even a song from Shrek 2.

There’s an awful lot of music here, so much that it takes a long time to take it all it. Hence, we find the multitude of end-of-year accolades a bit suspect. Sure it’s trendy to champion Tom Waits in this century, but they can’t all be zingers, can they? Therefore, the best way to approach the set is how it was designed: as three separate albums.

Brawlers is the most consistently upbeat disc, starting strong with the hiccupping rockabilly of “Lie To Me”. Many of the tracks sound like outtakes from Mule Variations or Real Gone, and a couple of tracks had debuted on a Waits-produced John Hammond album that came out in between those. There’s a full-fledged studio recording of “Fish In The Jailhouse”, a rousing encore from his 1999 tour, and “Rains On Me”, written with old pal Chuck E. Weiss. “The Return Of Jackie And Judy”, from a Ramones tribute album, sports a rhythm track straight off of White Light/White Heat (essentially a faster version of “LowDown” back at the start of the disc). But the song that got all the attention was “Road To Peace”, an outright indictment of American activities in the Mideast, sung with sparing concern for rhyme, taken nearly verbatim from pages in the New York Times. (He even names names.)

Bawlers would suggest a pile of songs aimed in the general vicinity of one’s heartstrings, but for the most part, it’s more of a tuneful antidote to some of the noisier elements of the first disc. “Bend Down The Branches” is a brief lullaby, of all things, but if you’re looking for variations on “Kentucky Avenue” or “Take It With Me”, you can save the Kleenex. It’s not until “Shiny Things” (once you get past the banjo) that one of those heartbreaking melodies emerges, and flowers full on the intro for “World Keeps Turning”. One true gem is “If I Have To Go”, a pretty ballad left off of Franks Wild Years, while one of the oldest songs here is “Take Care Of All Of My Children”, written for a 1984 documentary about homeless teenagers (and ties in with “Never Let Go”, from a later film based on that documentary). “Tell It To Me” is a gentle waltz, decorated with a rare pedal steel, which also turns up on his cover of “Young At Heart”. He leads an overdubbed choir of himself raising pint glasses to “Goodnight Irene”, and there’s even another Ramones cover in “Danny Says”.

Bastards is devoted to his wackier side, from spoken word pieces to collaborations and obscure covers. How obscure? Well, there’s stuff from tribute albums dedicated to Kurt Weill, Daniel Johnston and Skip Spence, a recital of a Charles Bukowski poem, and two variations on an excerpt from Jack Kerouac’s On The Road. (“Home I’ll Never Be” is the better of the two, and could go on the Bawlers disc; the rest could conceivably fit on Brawlers, but for their inherent wackiness.) Next to “Heigh-Ho”, the highlight is “Altar Boy”, an outtake from the project that inspired Blood Money, sung in the drunk style of the Small Change album. Overall, much of your enjoyment of this disc will depend on how much you liked the Real Gone approach. Two hidden tracks are tucked at the end: “Dog Treat”, a pre-song monologue while his fingers wander about the piano keys (always a highlight of his live shows), and “Missing My Son”, a story with a trick ending that may or may not be an old joke.

This admittedly only scratches the surface of everything in Orphans. Sure, it’s good; there’s just way too much of it. And one person’s single-disc distillation will certainly differ from any other. And the only reason why the album exists is because the Anti label was happy to finance anything he did, on his terms. Must be nice. (For the collector, the set was released three years later as on vinyl, each section split into two records, with a seventh disc including six more songs.)

Tom Waits Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards (2006)—3

Tom Waits 20: Real Gone

Well, here was something different. Tom Waits had already gained renown for making music out of “found sounds”, and since his eldest son had already started experimenting with turntables, his next album would feature loops built on sounds created by his own throat. The human beatbox is in charge most of the time, and there’s not a piano or any kind of keyboard to be found.

Real Gone is a long album, over an hour. There are songs here, but many of their potential charms are buried under heavy percussion. Even talented stalwarts such as Les Claypool and Marc Ribot struggle to be heard above the din. From time to time, a “song” does emerge; “Sins Of My Father” is the first one in the program, three songs in, but at over ten minutes, it too is easy to shake interest. The cacophony of the track that follows (“Shake It”, if you’re interested) slaps all the dust particles back into the air, with a voice so distorted that it’s impossible to follow with the lyrics (which are not necessarily in order in the CD booklet). That happens a few times on this album.

Another case in point: “The Day After Tomorrow” is a lovely lament, most likely written from the point of view of a soldier stuck in the Gulf. It comes at the end, with a mood not unlike Bob Dylan’s “Restless Farewell”. Then there’s 30 seconds of silence, and another minute’s worth of beatboxing in “Chickaboom”.

There are other wonderful moments on Real Gone, should you have the gumption to wade through an awful lot to get there. “Don’t Go Into That Barn” has clear antecedents on the Bone Machine and Mule Variations albums, leaving the concept to sound a little worn out. “How’s It Gonna End” is quiet and spooky enough to keep you asking the question in the title; the same goes for “Dead And Lovely”. “Trampled Rose” would go on to be part of the wildly popular collaboration between Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, following this original closely. “Green Grass” has an exquisite guitar intro that sadly doesn’t last through the rest of the song.

Such is the way with Real Gone. It’s not the best place to start, and he’s got plenty of other, better albums. Some people think this is one of his best, so maybe they’re right and we’re wrong.

Tom Waits Real Gone (2004)—2½

Tom Waits 19: Blood Money

While it hadn’t been waiting as long as Alice, Blood Money came from the same general source: a pre-industrial tale dramatized by Robert Wilson with songs by Tom Waits, with yet another complicated plot. At first it seems like a more challenging listen than its counterpart, but that’s not to elevate Alice any higher than it deserves.

“Misery’s The River Of The World” sports a lovely chromatic descent and return to accompany his Beefheart bark, and “Everything Goes To Hell” is just as bleak a message. “Coney Island Baby” brings a piano ballad just in time; not the Lou Reed song, but still has some allusions to “Innocent When You Dream” at the end. The marimbas and clarinets return for “All The World Is Green”, but then we go back to the demented circus for “God’s Away On Business”. “Another Man’s Vine” should appeal to fans of Bone Machine, reminiscent as it is of “Dirt In The Ground”. But the true antecedent here is The Black Rider, as demonstrated by the instrumental “Knife Chase”.

A very tender “Lullaby” provides a nice break, again, but then it’s back to nightmare territory with “Starving In The Belly Of A Whale”. “The Part You Throw Away” has the potential to be something profound, but the understated delivery and Night On Earth arrangement make it seem more of a passing phase. “Woe” is a brief, bronchial song of devotion swallowed up by the more dissonant “Calliope”, which brings to mind some of the interludes from the earlier Island years. An old 78 winds up for “A Good Man Is Hard To Find”, which plays over the credits of the imaginary movie.

Just like Alice, there are a lot of interesting textures on Blood Money, but it’s unlikely that Waits would be comfortable with this becoming background music, in the way that another artist famous for his textures (i.e. Brian Eno) would be. The music is striking, for certain, but without an outside producer to edit him (and the writing co-credited to his wife) one wonders what could have been whittled down to something simple and thus even more striking.

Tom Waits Blood Money (2002)—2

Tom Waits 18: Alice

He’d come back in such a resounding way with Mule Variations, so it was with relative speed that Tom Waits resurfaced yet again with not one but two albums released on the same day. Both were derived from stage productions he’d mounted with Robert Wilson, the playwright behind The Black Rider. Alice comes first alphabetically, so we’ll deal with that one here.

It’s also a good place to start, because the title track is a smoky lounge piano ballad that sounds equally at home on a Waits album from the ‘70s, ‘80s or ‘90s. It would be a wonderful torch song if it weren’t written from the point of view of an opiated adult towards an adolescent. A canned train whistle heralds the death march of “Everything You Can Think”, but while the nightmare seems to pass for “Flower’s Grave” and “No One Knows I’m Gone”, the mournful lyrics say otherwise. The CD booklet provides no lyrics for “Kommienezuspadt”, an exercise in gutteral fake German, but one might assume they would tie into the freaks the populate the next songs. “Poor Edward” is somehow afflicted with a woman’s face (“or a young girl”) on the back of his head, but perhaps he wasn’t as bad off as “Tabletop Joe”, a distant relation of the Eyeball Kid, “born without a body” but still possessing hands, so he could make music.

But “Lost In The Harbour” is the last gasp of a dying man, illustrated by what sounds like the water in the harmonium about to swallow him up, but he surfaces long enough for another verse. “We’re All Mad Here” turns the nightmare back on, followed by the monologue in “Watch Her Disappear”. One would think there’s some kind of connection to Germany, since the next track takes place in the “Reeperbahn”, unless he’s referring to the more literal translation of “rope walk”. Another respite emerges in “I’m Still Here”, which could qualify as a reconciliation, and “Fish & Bird” and “Barcarolle” are just as pretty (though the latter threatens to descend into discord in the instrumental middle). “Fawn” is a closing instrumental with a violin that sounds more like a saw.

Unlike The Black Rider, no synopsis is supplied to help us discern whatever story these songs on Alice are supposed to illustrate. The songs had sat around for ten years before this official recording was released, so fanatics already had something for comparison. For those of us entering the party with this invitation, we were less inclined to sample the food laid out. Chances are others that happened to wander in might not have stayed to see what the fuss was about, but no matter; there was the other album to consider while this one marinated.

Tom Waits Alice (2002)—2½

Tom Waits 17: Mule Variations

Just in time for the end of the century, Tom Waits came back from too long an absence with the sixteen new songs that comprise Mule Variations. The tunes run the gamut from the grating clatter of his early-‘90s work to the heartbreaking piano balladry that always gets him mention as a great American songwriter. Such reliable Waits sidemen as Marc Ribot, Ralph Carney and Greg Cohen appear, alongside Primus, John Hammond, Smokey Hormel, and Charlie Musselwhite.

The album seems to pick up where Bone Machine left off, with the noise and rumble of “Big In Japan” and “Lowside Of The Road”. Then “Hold On” enters with a gentle set of strummed and picked guitars, seeming to be a conversation between a man and a woman, with a simple yet adhesive chorus. “Get Behind The Mule” is a lengthy blues that doesn’t ever drag. The piano emerges on “House Where Nobody Lives”, a melody worthy of his ‘70s stuff without the gravel in the rasp. “Cold Water” slows the blues down even further and dirtier, and “Pony” pairs a pump organ with a dobro for a lonesome lyrics about wanting to get back home. The song everybody talked about is “What’s He Building?”, a spooky monologue about a Boo Radley-type neighbor that could well be used to describe himself.

That’s a full album right there, but this was the ‘90s, so there’s plenty more to go. “Black Market Baby” is a painfully slow love song, picked up by the twisted sideshow of the “Eyeball Kid”, a freak whose physical attributes consist of just that. “Picture In A Frame” says a lot with very little, a sweet valentine over a pretty piano. “Chocolate Jesus” takes an entrepreneurial slant on gospel, covered over by the sad lament of “Georgia Lee”. “Filipino Box Spring Hog” originally appeared on a various artists collection as an outtake from the last album; here it’s just as raucous and silly. The two best songs are saved for last—the positively beautiful “Take It With Me” and the more inspirational “Come On Up To The House” (sample lyric: “Come down off the cross, we can use the wood”; good advice any day of the week).

Mule Variations has everything: slow stank, heartbreak and banging on the heat pipes. By covering such a wide swath of styles, it’s an excellent introduction along the lines of Small Change and Rain Dogs. It might not convert the unconvinced, but those of us who enjoy it hoped it wouldn’t be another six years before the next one. (Unless that’s what it takes for him to create something of this quality.)

Tom Waits Mule Variations (1999)—4

Tom Waits 16: Bounced Checks and Beautiful Maladies

Besides being a very private man, Tom Waits is incredibly protective of his legacy. The lawsuits he’s won against advertisers that have borrowed his perceived style have financed his children’s college educations, and enabled him to record whenever he wants to, rather than according to the demands of a record company.

He also doesn’t like to be pigeonholed, and while he still performs some of his “oldies” from time to time, he generally avoids any connection to the barfly poet that graced most of his ‘70s work. That management contract ended around the time he married his wife, so there’s a pretty big dividing line between that Tom Waits and the one who emerged afterwards.

Various arms of Asylum Records anthologized that period in different ways. The US got the Anthology Of Tom Waits grab bag, while overseas markets got either the two-LP Asylum Years compilation or its truncated, resequenced CD version. In this century, Rhino used their access to the WEA catalog to issue Used Songs, which is more of a Hal Willner mix tape than an educational overview. Worth seeking out is the Bounced Checks import, which sported lesser-known album cuts, a few alternate mixes, a hilarious live exploration on “The Piano Has Been Drinking” and, best of all, an unreleased rarity in “Mr. Henry”, a classic portrait of a man stumbling home around dawn.

A lengthy sabbatical seemed to follow his somewhat high profile in the ‘80s and early ‘90s. In a move that screamed “contract obligation”, Island released Beautiful Maladies, a compilation of 23 tracks from his stint on the label. It’s a good introduction to that segment of his career, focusing on the rinky-dink orchestrations and vocals by way of a busted megaphone.

As the many one-off appearances, soundtracks and bootlegs can attest, there’s a whole pile of material not currently available. While some of the Island rarities and later nuggets have been collected, as we shall see soon enough, the Asylum period is likely to stay limited to those original albums. But we can dream, can’t we?

Tom Waits Bounced Checks (1981)—3½
Tom Waits Anthology Of Tom Waits (1984)—3½
Tom Waits Asylum Years (1984)—4
Tom Waits Beautiful Maladies: The Island Years (1998)—4
Tom Waits Used Songs 1973-1980 (2001)—3

Tom Waits 15: The Black Rider

It’s entirely possible that his last album avoided an overlying concept for the simple reason that he was working on something else entirely for the last few years. That something was The Black Rider, a collaboration with playwright Robert Wilson with a little help from William S. Burroughs. Presented as a play with music (a la Franks Wild Years), it places Tom happily within one of his happiest environments—the nightmarish German carnival. The opening “Lucky Day Overture” features him hawking the alleged performers through a bullhorn, continued in the title track, sung with an accent that can’t decide if it’s French or German. The promise of a “gay old time” jars with the accompaniment.

While the story is detailed in the liner notes, and full lyrics are provided, one is still hard-pressed to figure out what is going on—something about a hunter aspiring to win the hand of a woman, who he ends up shooting instead, to which Burroughs could certainly relate.

The bulk of the album seesaws between unsettling circus sounds and more developed ballads. In the spirit of Night On Earth, several songs are represented in separate instrumental and vocal forms, and often with dramatic results. For instance, “Gospel Train” appears first as a loping incline, then as a more frenetic track with an incongruous vocal and a wheezing sound effect. “Russian Dance” stomps along (indeed, as there’s a credit for five people on “boots”) and the “Boners” return for “Oily Night”, a song guaranteed to clear a room.

The actual songs stand out too. “I’ll Shoot The Moon” is nice and romantic, complete with a spoken monologue begging the object of his desire to call him; he even gives the phone number. “November” aptly sums up the crueler aspects of that month, while “The Briar And The Rose” is a love song that deserves better than the strangled delivery it gets here. Burroughs himself “sings” an oldie called “T’ain’t No Sin” (as in “to take off your skin and dance around in your bones”, while a marimba bops happily along), while Waits recites the man’s litany in “That’s The Way”. “Crossroads” pushes the plot again, Burroughs’ words equating the doomed hero’s destiny to that of a junkie. Something of a grand finale (if not an “Innocent When You Dream”-style singalong) is “Lucky Day”, with its schoolyard reminiscences and the sound advice in the middle: “when you get blue and you’ve lost all your dreams/There’s nothing like a campfire and a can of beans.”

Despite its eccentricities, The Black Rider is one of the more consistent Waits listens, in that it’s uniform in its weirdness. It’s not as repetitive as Night On Earth, while more distinct than Bone Machine. It succeeds, almost despite itself.

Tom Waits The Black Rider (1993)—3

Tom Waits 14: Bone Machine

The so-called Island trilogy of the mid-‘80s arguably brought Tom Waits the widest notoriety of his career to date. Then he took another break from music, acted in a few films, won a couple of lawsuits and presumably raised his children. The gap was finally broken by the soundtrack to a Jim Jarmusch film. Night On Earth juxtaposed taxi rides in five different cities around the world, with suitable accompaniment from Tom’s chosen carnies and roustabouts evoking a smoky late-night feel. Most of the “moods” and “themes” are variations of each other, and therefore fairly repetitive. As with many soundtracks, the tracks fade into the background pretty quickly. (We do like the bellowed “two, three, four” in the middle of “Los Angeles Theme”.) Of more interest were the handful of vocals. “Good Old World” is a prettier version of “Back In The Good Old World”, which is only slightly different from “On The Other Side Of The World”.

Thankfully, a “real” album emerged later in the same year. Bone Machine presented the latest evolution of his Beefheart-influenced approach, heavy on percussion that sounded like, well, bones being struck together, right off the bat in “Earth Died Screaming”. “Dirt In The Ground” continues the uplifting trend, on a piece for falsetto, piano and sax. “Such A Scream” provides the debut of the elusive Eyeball Kid, before sliding into “All Stripped Down”. “Who Are You” finally delivers a song, but just as you’re lulled into place, “The Ocean Doesn’t Want Me” presents the monologue of a woman considering drowning herself. Still, that makes a cool segue into “Jesus Gonna Be Here”, another fake gospel song sung in a high falsetto.

The pretty piano returns on “A Little Rain”, with a touch of pedal steel coloring the corners, then gives way to “In The Colosseum”, a noisy dirge not far removed from his notorious “seven dwarves on strike” version of “Heigh-Ho”. “Goin’ Out West” is also noisy, but offers something of a groove with some excellent lyrics (“Tony Franciosa used to date my ma”; “I look good without a shirt”) and spaghetti-Western guitar. “Murder In The Red Barn” uses a squeaky chair for the rhythm, telling an even starker story than coliseum two tracks earlier. There’s another tale hidden within “Black Wings”, with an overall sound that conjures the spooky image implied in the title. “Whistle Down The Wind” is a cousin to “A Little Rain”, with a lonesome pair of fiddles soloing over the bridge. The other “rock” song on the album, “I Don’t Wanna Grow Up”, has a wonderfully distorted guitar to match the voice of a rather perceptive kid, and you might not notice that there’s no drums until the third play through. A 55-second distillation of the “Such A Scream”/“All Stripped Down” approach sets “That Feel” off on its own. Everyone’s favorite song on the album, it features Keith Richards wailing along in a near duet.

Bone Machine isn’t as consistent as its predecessors, choosing instead to present a variety of styles with no other overlying concept. As it turns out, he was up to something, but that’s a story for later. For now, it was just nice to have something new from the guy.

Tom Waits Night On Earth (1992)—2
Tom Waits Bone Machine (1992)—3

Tom Waits 13: The Early Years

There had been something of a lull since “the Island trilogy”, during which Our Hero made a few movies and started some lawsuits but produced precious little music. Meanwhile, his first manager reactivated his old Bizarre label and started licensing things via Rhino Records. That’s how two CDs of early recordings by Tom Waits, which predated even Closing Time, managed to sneak into reputable shops before the artist turned his attorneys on the case like so many rabid dogs. (It may well have been one of the few cases he’s lost, as the music is still in print today.)

These are not all demos, as might be imagined. There’s a band on some of the tracks, but time has lost their names. At this point (1971), he’s sticking to guitar half the time and staying within the confines of the real folk blues. That’s where otherwise lost-to-the ages songs like “Goin’ Down Slow”, “Rockin’ Chair” and “Poncho’s Lament” fit. “Had Me A Girl” was obviously designed to make people in the coffeehouses chuckle, as would the more pointed “I’m Your Late Night Evening Prostitute”, a fairly accurate portrait of the average entertainer.

For familiar fans, it’s interesting to hear “Ice Cream Man” taken at its slower pace, while “Virginia Ave.” and “Midnight Lullabye” come fully formed. The version of “Little Trip To Heaven” is even lovelier than the “official” take, even considering the whistled solo. Historians will gravitate towards the first appearance of a protagonist named Frank, but this is more than likely coincidental. And proof that he was ahead of his time comes in the form of “Looks Like I’m Up Shit Creek Again”.

Whoever compiled these collections put the best tracks on the first volume, as the follow-up, while obviously dictated by sales, grasps at straws. This is illustrated by the preponderance of more familiar song titles. That said, it’s doubtful anyone will gravitate towards these versions of “Ol’ ‘55” or “I Hope That I Don’t Fall In Love With You”. “Shiver Me Timbers” hasn’t yet gained the melancholy so heavy. “Mockin’ Bird” has promise, but can’t get past the first two lines. But “So It Goes” puts him firmly in the realm of other New Dylans of the John Prine cloth, and “Diamonds On My Windshield” shows his grasp of beatnik music at this primitive phase. And the appearance of a solo acoustic “Blue Skies” only makes us wish the lush B-side was more readily available.

Taken together, the two volumes of The Early Years provide an alternate view of Tom Waits, showing where he came from. Perhaps he finds these preliminary sketches to be embarrassing—neither are listed on his official website—but really, there’s been a lot worse stuff magnetted to refrigerators over the years.

Tom Waits The Early Years Volume One (1991)—3
Tom Waits The Early Years Vol. 2 (1993)—2½

Tom Waits 12: Big Time

Despite the theatrical genesis of Franks Wild Years, it was never made into a narrative movie. Instead, Tom’s tour behind the album was filmed and cut with a few performance art pieces, and released as Big Time. With the band basically crowded around the industrial light bulb hung from his mike stand, it makes for a straining watch.

At least the music is entertaining. A smattering of selections were included on the companion soundtrack album, and provides a nice sampler of songs culled mostly from his Island tenure. In the live format, Tom’s able to emote a little more, giving some life to things like “Way Down In The Hole”, while infusing “Cold Cold Ground” and “Time” with the tenderness they deserve. Even with its jokey non sequitur prelude, “Train Song” is just as sad as its album version.

There are some departures to keep things interesting. “Red Shoes” is rescued from ‘70s obscurity, and “Strange Weather” makes its Waits debut, having already been covered by Marianne Faithfull, deep into her own Kurt Weill phase. “Falling Down” is a studio recording; nearly a pop song, we can’t help wondering if the demolished hotel mentioned in the lyrics is a reference to his old home in the Tropicana. “Telephone Call From Istanbul” is sped up, and runs away from the chorus to quote “Chantilly Lace”. Throughout, his crackerjack junkyard ensemble keeps up with his every spit and gargle.

It’s not the best representation of a Waits concert, but given that he was about to take a ten-year sabbatical from the stage, Big Time had to suffice.

Tom Waits Big Time (1988)—3
1988 CD version: same as LP, plus 6 extra tracks

Tom Waits 11: Franks Wild Years

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

Tom Waits 10: Rain Dogs

Tom moved his new family to New York City, where he fell in with a set of unique musicians and recorded Rain Dogs. The album is nearly flawless, running the gamut from old ballads to rock songs, infused with the new carnival sound he’d started developing on Swordfishtrombones. Loaded with nineteen tracks, it’s one of his best.

“Singapore” stumbles in to immediately show off the latest weapons in his arsenal: guitarist Marc Ribot and percussionist Michael Blair, the latter of whom utilized hubcaps and industrial pipe over the usual congas and tambourines. “Clap Hands” is something of a fractured nursery rhyme, taken to an even further extreme on “Cemetery Polka”, with its litany of creepy uncles and their unappreciative offspring. “Jockey Full Of Bourbon” is a swampy little rhumba, a perfect match for its use in the film Down By Law. The broken-finger piano returns for “Tango Till They’re Sore”, something of a farewell speech in the middle of side one. “Big Black Mariah” sounds a little more standard, thanks in part to Keith Richards on guitar, before giving way to the spooky lullaby cadence of “Diamonds & Gold”. “Hang Down Your Head” is rocking yet mournful, just as “Time” is tender and sweet.

An accordion opens side two before bringing in the clatter of the title track. The minute-long instrumental “Midtown” perfectly captures the sound of the city in this or any decade. “9th and Hennepin” is a spoken visit to a donut shop somewhere in Minneapolis, before we go deep into the woods for “Gun Street Girl”. Keith returns to add guitar to “Union Square”, but he’s used to much better effect on “Blind Love”, as straight a country song as you’ll find here. “Walking Spanish” is a little on the ordinary side (for him) but who could have predicted that “Downtown Train” would become such a huge hit for so many other people? “Bride Of Rain Dog” is another instrumental interlude before we get the real farewell speech, New Orleans funeral-style, in “Anywhere I Lay My Head”.

With over 53 minutes of music, Rain Dogs offers a lot at once, but for the Waits newcomer, it’s an excellent place to start. Without the slightest hint of his drunken troubadour image, it sounds like nothing he’d done in the ‘70s, yet as ever, he wasn’t about to follow any recent trends. Best of all, the album hangs together very well as an album, making it a pleasure from start to finish.

Tom Waits Rain Dogs (1985)—5

Tom Waits 9: Swordfishtrombones

With a couple of years off, during which he married the love of his life, Tom Waits also found time to change labels and rethink his approach to record-making. When Swordfishtrombones finally appeared, it would have been a shock to those who were expecting another album of saloon laments. But for those paying attention, despite the change in general sound, it was a logical progression.

What would become revered as his “Island trilogy” was marked by a left turn into what could be disparagingly categorized as circus music. This wasn’t such a stretch, since anyone who’d listened to any of his albums might have guessed that when it came to the carnival, Our Hero would be more entranced by the freaks in the sideshow than by the girl on the high wire. (Well, maybe just a little.)

His voice, as raspy as ever, carries these songs as well as they’ve carried anything in his catalog. The difference from here, however, is that he found his new inspiration in the guttural blues of Captain Beefheart, taking his inspiration from that band’s primitive approach and reveling in the wonder of “found sounds”. This is apparent from the beginning, as “Underground” lays a foundation for his career going forward, with Fred Tackett’s guitar poking its way through the barest of arrangements. “Shore Leave” places a shaggy story up against a surprising chorus, just like he always did. The wacky “Dave The Butcher” instrumental is an odd prelude to the torch song of “Johnsburg, Illinois”, the first of many Valentines to his wife. “16 Shells From A 30-6” establishes the junkyard sound that would dominate the trilogy, with barely a chord to hang its melody on. The lament of Australian sobriety in “Town With No Cheer”, nice as it is, seems little more than a continuation of his alcoholic wanderings, but what truly wins is the portrait of desolate suburbia as depicted “In The Neighborhood”.

“Just Another Sucker On The Vine” is a classic Waits melody, here transferred to the harmonium where previously the piano would have been the vehicle. A foreshadowing of sorts is held within the monologue about “Frank’s Wild Years”, proof that there are few storytellers of his ilk. That can get buried within the wordplay of “Swordfishtrombone”, but the relentless boogie of “Down, Down, Down” shows his ability to get a new song out of the same word. “Soldier’s Things” is a potentially heartbreaking peek at a tag sale, made even more surreal when it was covered by Paul Young. The bitter “Gin Soaked Boy” is the last look back at his old sound, a simple plod through accusation. “Trouble’s Braids” is an experimental monologue within a tone poem, while the closing “Rainbirds” manages to foreshadow his next step while delivering one of the prettiest instrumental performances of his career to date.

Swordfishtrombones was definitely a departure for those who’d tried to keep up with Tom thus far, but more than that, it was an exciting introduction for those coming in late. For anyone who’d discovered Tom Waits with this album, the selections on Closing Time and Small Change would have seemed almost quaint and pedestrian. Starting here, he’d embarked on a journey guaranteed to entice as well as it would confound.

Tom Waits Swordfishtrombones (1983)—4½

Tom Waits 8: One From The Heart

A few years after bankrupting himself by trying to recreate the Vietnam War in Apocalypse Now, Francis Ford Coppola decided to recoup his losses by building a scale model of Las Vegas on a soundstage for his next major-league epic, One From The Heart. Having been entranced by the dialogue betwixt Tom Waits and Bette Midler on “I Never Talk To Strangers”, he hired Tom to write the score for his film, with the idea that the songs would actively reflect the script and vice versa. Bette not being available, the most obvious second choice was, of course, country sweetheart Crystal Gayle, she of the four-foot mane and bright blue eyes.

One thing to consider about the album’s context is that its genesis and completion framed the recording of Heartattack And Vine, the gritty sound of which is a direct contrast to this album’s more lush arrangements. The so-called “Opening Montage” goes from a brief piano piece into a couple of duets, one dreamy, the other jazz. “Picking Up After You” gives each of them a chance to complain, and Tom gives himself the best lines (“When did you start combing your hair with a wrench?”) but it’s a tad forced. Much better is “This One’s From The Heart”, which works well as a theme song of sorts.

Listening to this album, one can’t help but wonder what Crystal’s fan base might have taken of it. There’s no denying she has a lovely voice, especially as she wraps it around tearjerkers the likes of “Old Boyfriends” and “Take Me Home”. And how confused were they by her strange partner, grumbling his way through “Broken Bicycles”, “I Beg Your Pardon”. “Little Boy Blue” and “You Can’t Unring A Bell”? (Here’s an even wackier question: can we convince Tony Bennett to stop rerecording the same old standards and do an album of Tom Waits songs? Wouldn’t that be amazing?)

Since the film was such a resounding flop, its accompanying soundtrack LP got overlooked. The world at large wasn’t interested in a musical that hadn’t already been tested on Broadway, and it remains a transitional piece in the Waits discography. He had already all but left the saloon style behind, yet there are some clues to the future in the tango-cum-circus instrumental on side two, some of the percussion and the appearance of a bass player named Greg Cohen.

Decades later, after Coppola had finally made some of his money back, the film would be viewed a little differently (read: not a complete disaster, but still overblown) and the soundtrack hailed as exceptional, right down to adding two previously unreleased tracks to the remastered CD.

Tom Waits and Crystal Gayle The Original Soundtrack Of “One From The Heart” (1982)—2½
2004 reissue: same as 1982, plus 2 extra tracks

Tom Waits 7: Heartattack And Vine

For a man who went his own pointed way in the ‘70s, it was perhaps fitting that the first Tom Waits album of the ‘80s should be so schizophrenic. Heartattack And Vine offers a hodgepodge of styles, mostly alternating between slow R&B and slow weepies. Somehow, the mix works.

The title track plods along with a limp, describing yet more of the seedy underbelly of L.A. (Great couplet: “You know there ain’t no devil/That’s just God when He’s drunk.”) The album’s barely gotten warmed up before an instrumental, the just as slow “In Shades”, occupies four minutes of time. Then it’s an odd shift to “Saving All My Love For You”, a lovely outtake from two albums back, layered in strings fit for a pre-dawn reverie. “Downtown” isn’t much to get excited about unless you like Hammond organ runs, but he pens another classic in “Jersey Girl”, the one song Bruce Springsteen wishes he’d written, and indeed, since made his own.

A better use of the familiar recipe propels “’Til The Money Runs Out”, with Tom’s spitting wheeze riding the voodoo beat. Then it’s back to the sap with “On The Nickel”, a sadly beautiful tribute to the “little boys” who live on skid row, with key changes after every other verse and a near lullaby ending. The mood is jostled by “Mr. Siegal”, which continues the New Orleans jazz vibe from Blue Valentine and may or may not refer to the Vegas gangster. There are a few good lines in there, but it goes on too long. The album ends with another lullaby in “Ruby’s Arms”, another tearjerker sung at dawn, this time to a sleeping woman he’s about to leave for good.

It’s a fitting way to go out, for with Heartattack And Vine, Tom Waits basically said goodbye to his old persona, his producer, and his label. The journey he was about to take would be even stranger than where he’d already been, but he had to leave the Tropicana Hotel sometime.

Tom Waits Heartattack And Vine (1980)—3

Tom Waits 6: Blue Valentine

Don’t be fooled by the opening notes of “Somewhere”, dutifully subtitled as being the song from West Side Story. Despite the syrupy strings and the passionate if raspy vocal, it’s not representative of Blue Valentine as a whole.

Perhaps Tom thought he was beginning to spin his wheels; after all, how many songs can you write from the perspective of a barstool while clutching a Kerouac novel? This time out he added a jazzy tinge to his R&B, with guitars and pianos both electric and dominating the arrangements. Unfortunately, a lot of it sounds the same, undercutting the vague story within “Red Shoes By The Drugstore” and the true crime detail of “Romeo Is Bleeding”. “Christmas Card From A Hooker In Minneapolis” has a few humorous lines, but it’s all a clever setup for the twist in the last verse. Then there’s “$29.00”, which is eight minutes long and seems longer.

“Wrong Side Of The Road” seems to hearken back to the slow shuffles on his second album, but “Whistlin’ Past The Graveyard” picks up the pace a bit with an infectious riff. Likewise, “A Sweet Little Bullet From A Pretty Blue Gun” seems to recycle some familiar territory, with nursery rhyme references and the pointed mention of a scarecrow. And as with the last album, the closer is a near title track, but this time it’s a slow torchy burner on electric guitar, showing off his prowess on the instrument.

Past the promise of “Somewhere”, Blue Valentine doesn’t sound that great on paper, but there’s one track we didn’t mention yet. What redeems this album comes in the middle of side two, the positively heartbreaking “Kentucky Avenue”. Quite possibly the saddest song ever written and recorded by anybody, it begins tentatively with a few rolls on the piano, then the vocal begins to describe some quirky neighborhood characters—you know, the types of oddballs you find in Tom Waits songs. But soon the identity of the narrator becomes clearer. This isn’t a barfly but a kid, somewhere before adolescence, perhaps talking to himself—or is he? Throughout the track there is only one change from the few repeating chords, and right after that interval, the song begins to expand, his voice reaching for higher notes and cracking with emotion. When the strings finally enter, the secret is revealed: the person meant to hear this monologue is confined to a wheelchair and wears legbraces. The narrator’s desire to free his friend from this virtual prison stretches his dreams to the limit, the strings underscoring both the compassion of a child and the futility of the situation.

The song is stunning, and never fails to catch in your throat. And it makes the rest of the album almost worthwhile.

Tom Waits Blue Valentine (1978)—2½

Tom Waits 5: Foreign Affairs

Tom Waits’ capabilities as a storyteller continued on Foreign Affairs, which follows many of the approaches of Small Change. Drunken stumbles alternate with sweet melodies and truly unique turns of phrase.

The simple “Cinny’s Waltz” is a nice instrumental before the barroom lament for “Muriel”. But whatever he felt for that girl doesn’t keep him from hitting on Bette Midler throughout “I Never Talk To Strangers”. The duet goes flat a few times, but it’s still a masterful stream of conversation. Something of a detour occurs with the evocation of On The Road in “Jack & Neal”, its story swaggering into a chorus from “California Here I Come”. But after all that he’s still stuck in the bar, raising a glass alongside “A Sight For Sore Eyes” who just walked in.

The truly cinematic “Potter’s Field” is a nearly nine-minute monologue scored like a movie, complete with dramatic pauses and crescendos. Not the easiest of listening, but truly fascinating. Even more successful is “Burma Shave”, a tale of two people escaping nowhere only to find their common doom, with a simple bluesy piano punctuated only at the end by a startling trumpet. The mood is unfortunately broken by “Barber Shop”, one of the few Waits songs that seems to take place in daylight. Instead of the bar, here the old-timers meet for a haircut. The closing near title track, however, is one of his greatest pieces of poetry, bearing little of the weight of slang, but evoking the wonder of wanderlust.

Ultimately, Foreign Affairs finds Waits beginning to repeat himself, just as it can be tiring to listen to the same old drunk. But such experiments as “Potter’s Field” and “Burma Shave” show that he had the potential to develop, and maybe he was meant to be in movies after all.

Tom Waits Foreign Affairs (1977)—3