It's hard to imagine what people thought of Waits at the time
of his debut album's release. Certainly he had already gained a cult following
in LA for his spoken word shows and I suppose most knew him more as a kind of
neo-beat writer than singer, but I wonder what the general music buying public
thought of him. His early material (or any of his material for that matter)
never gets exposure on those late night Time Life singer songwriter infomercials.
Although, perhaps it's a good thing that his songs are not sandwiched between
say, Glen Campbell's sappy shit or John Denver's ballad fuckery. For Waits fans
looking back in time, this is usually referred to as his "normal" album. His
voice was normal. His songs were partly down-trodden country rock, whiskey drenched
and reeked of regret and despair, but he wasn't weird yet. He wasn't yet singing
of a "world going on underground" or "eyeball kids".
"Ol '55" remains an early Waits radio staple. During university at a drugstore
job, I used to hear "Ol '55" on the radio regularly, but then I didn't know
it was Waits because I hadn't yet bought any of his albums. When I finally bought
this record and heard the opening track I was like "THAT's Tom Waits?? This
is the weird guy I've been hearing about??". That song, combined with "I Hope
I Don't Fall In Love With You", "Virginia Avenue", and "Old Shoes (& Picture
Postcards) start the album off with a strong country feel, especially the latter,
which is a real two step kind of ditty. They're pleasant enough, but "Midnight
Lullaby", "Martha", and "Lonely" truly start to reveal his depth. Now we know
he's onto something. The ghost of Kurt Weill seems to linger in "Lonely", and
"Martha" remains one of the saddest songs he's ever written. It was this depth
that endeared Waits to many jazz musicians, as his songwriting tended to echo
the musicals of 20 or 30 years before. "Little Trip To Heaven (On The Wings
Of Your Love) is pure crooning material. Dean Martin or Tony Bennett could pull
this one off no problem, and "Grapefruit Moon" belongs on Broadway for sure.
So what people who paid attention back in 1973 probably saw in Waits was a gifted
songwriter who was yet to expand his musical canvas, but who had tremendous
potential. What they didn't anticipate, however, was the eccentricity which
followed.
Any comments or reviews to grant us with
Not only do I think Rain Dogs is one of the top ten albums
of the 1980s, but I also believe it's one of the most frequently name-dropped
albums of all time. You know the name-droppers I'm speaking of: the fakes, the
phonies, the pseudo artsy-fartsies. My mother is a painter and these types of
people come to her shows all the time. Champagne glasses in hand, they waltz
up to her and say stuff like "yes..hmm..you are very unique..kind of like..Dali"
or "I love artists...they create so much...art..ooh is that Margaret Atwood
over there?" So true female music fans beware, as just as that book poser would
be willing to tell you he's read "The Unbearable Lightness Of Being" just to
get you into bed (which would be an ironically Milan Kundera moment in itself),
so he would also have you believe Rain Dogs is one of his favourite albums of
all time. Next time this happens, challenge him. Ask him cryptically if there's
"nothing wrong with him a hundred dollars wouldn't fix" and wait for his reaction.
Or better yet, ask him if he loves the Rod Stewart cover on the album? If he's
a stupid enough poser, he'll actually think Rod Stewart is ON THE COVER OF THE
ALBUM!
In 1985 I was 11. See...there I am...riding my bmx bike down the sidewalk and
wait...the camera swoops away from me and pans into a record shop with a mullet
haired zitfarm behind the counter, posters of Cindi Lauper adorn the walls,
and there it is in glorious vinyl and chrome cassette - Rain Dogs: the album,
the experience. Here comes a customer, christ, look at his red zippered Michael
Jackson jacket, oh wait he's approaching Rain Dogs..he's...he's...picking up
a Kajagoogoo record. Damn.
The years 1983-85 proved to be transitional for Waits, finding him switching
record labels for the first time. His music didn't drastically change during
this period, but I believe his overall vision became wider. He experimented
with more exotic rhythms and instrumentation, and more successfully managed
to fuse his poetry with his music. I'm wondering if former label Asylum was
not willing to compromise this vision of his, as the production on the Island
records is considerably more brittle, hollow and sometimes isolating. It doesn't
seem as accomodating as the soft, jazzy, Bones Howe production on the Asylum
records. Perhaps Waits was wanting to break away from being seen as purely a
novelty balladeer.
By the time Rain Dogs came out, Waits was already well-respected within the
music community, and a wide range of different artists from different genres
were interested in working with him. Most notably on the Rain Dogs sessions
Keith Richards lends some bluesy chops to "Big Black Mariah" and "Union Square".
Most likely old Keef was bored with his own "Dirty Work" sessions with the Stones,
I guess as bored as most people were with the final product. Robert Quine of
Televsion fame also performs some guest axework on "Blind Love", a song also
covered by country outlaw Dwight Yoakam. Other notorious covers from the album
include jazz singer Holly Cole's sultry rendition of "Tango Till They're Sore".
It's a faithful rendition, but strays a bit from Waits' out of tune Louis Jordan-style
30's jazz motif on the song. Most famous, of course, is Rod Stewart's admittedly
decent version of "Downtown Train", and as Stewart's version hit it big on the
charts, you could just hear Waits click his heels and yell "here come my royalty
cheques!" If you ask me, he deserves every single penny for that beautiful song
and its classic line "the downtown trains are full/with all those Brooklyn girls/they
try so hard to break out of their little worlds." George Gershwin couldn't have
put it better himself.
Those Brooklyn girls and other characters Waits creates are what make this album
truly special. Listening to it is a very visual experience, as if you were watching
a play. The opening bars of "Singapore" for example, makes me visualize pirates
and seedy characters at sea. "Clap Hands" is a stream of consciousness chant
almost like a children's song sung in a mental institution. "Cemetery Polka"
rhymes off a series of hilarious stories of different "uncles" all with their
individual infirmaries such as a tumor, a wooden leg, emphysema, etc. "Jockey
Full Of Bourbon" gets musically interesting with a rhumba beat and a narrator
who's "full of bourbon and can't stand up". "Hang Down Your Head" is the album's
only track co-written with Waits' wife Kathleen, and is a really lovely ballad;
the best track on the record.
"Rain Dogs", the title track, strikes me as a depressing drinking song with
its come hither Greek-style tempo and line "oh how we danced away/all of the
lights/we've always been out of our minds." Yeah, you might sing this arm in
arm with your drinking buddies as you saunter home at 4am. "9th and Hennepin"
is spoken word with lots of interesting sounds in the background, and amidst
its short tale of a down and out "crumbling beauty" of a counter woman, is the
weirdness of the line "all the doughnuts have names like prostitutes." Hmm...I
had to think about that one for awhile. Actually, I'm still thinking about it.
"Union Square" finds him rocking out in a Little Richard way, and it's really
great to hear him get back to basics on a ripping rock and roll tune like that
one. "Walking Spanish" goes more for a cool blues groove and I believe the song
means either to "show you're cool while under pressure", or to stall for time
or both. Waits delivers these lines as slick as a cool Spanish gangster himself
stressing that "even Jesus wanted just a little more time/when he was walking
Spanish down the hall."
So there it is kids, a real modern classic. Almost twenty years down the road,
Rain Dogs still continues to fascinate.
Any comments or reviews to grant us with
"I'm not ready for this" is usually an expression I reserve
for music which I either cannot understand or am too lazy to understand, but
plan to check out at some later date. I know it's the worst form of procrastination
because music should be discovered continually, one should live one's life to
the fullest, seize the day and all that crap. But somewhere in the back of my
brain something says "you don't want this...not yet...you will someday...but
not now." So just as I'd like to run naked through a vat of giant hummous sauce,
as much as it sounds appealing, I'm just not ready to do it. Perhaps when I
finally go off my nut, I'll try it.
"Bone Machine" certainly sounds like Waits going off the deep end or literally
going out of his mind. With what? Fear? Anticipation of the worst kind of apocalyptic
nightmare? Being finally chucked off Island records' roster for being one of
their lowest selling artists? I'm surprised Island didn't give him the boot
after he gave them this album, as it is probably the hardest of all of his albums
to crack. Nope, no pleasant tracks for Rod Stewart or anyone else to cover here.
It took me around fifteen spins to finally form some cohesive opinion of it,
and I'm still not convinced I have it figured out.
In 1992 I hadn't yet bought any Waits albums but had heard of him as a result
of all the critical praise that was heaped upon him. I remember seeing the album
on a listening post at a record shop so I pushed back my grungy long hair and
put on the headphones. I don't think I really made it past "Earth Died Screaming"
and "Dirt In The Ground" before I made up my mind that I wasn't ready for it.
Back then I think it was his voice I found hard to figure out. Why is he singing
like that? Is this a joke? I hadn't yet realized that his voice changes like
a chameleon to fit the mood or subject matter of a particular song. Anyway,
a couple of years ago I saw the album used for ten bucks, and already having
a couple of his albums under my belt, decided to give it a go. When I got it
home and into my c.d. player I again asked myself "am I ready for this?" then
promptly filed it in my c.d. tower and forgot about it for six months or so.
I eventually got around to listening to it, and now I'm convinced that the best
music finds you and not the other way around. You've heard the expression "you
think you own cats, but in their minds, they own you." With the most eccentric
music it's the same idea. It eventually comes to you.
So "Bone Machine" really is a bleak journey into the darkest corners of Waits'
mind. I suppose 1992 was a fashionable year for angst in music what with grunge
and all that whining, but it really is believable on this album, as Waits beckons
everyone to step into his nightmare. "Earth Died Screaming" reads like a page
torn from the bible's book of Revelation, except no one is saved from limbo
as Waits chants "hell doesn't want you and heaven is full". Most impressive
on this song are the metaphors for the earth's destruction as in "the stars
went out/the moon fell from the sky/it rained mackerel/it rained trout."
He sounds positively world weary on "Dirt In The Ground" amidst a sombre background
of piano and horns. How depressing is a line like "we're chained to the world
and we all gotta pull"? "Such A Scream" and "All Stripped Down" preview sounds
that he would eventually expand upon on Mule Variations, the former reminds
me of "Eyeball Kid" and the latter sort of like "Get Behind The Mule".
"Who Are You" is not a Who cover, but a pleasant sounding ballad with positively
acidic and spiteful lyrics. This ain't a love song..more like a "hate song"
but is still beautiful and frightening at the same time. Especially notable
is the line "are you still jumping out of windows in expensive clothes?". It
doesn't sound like the lyrics are directed at a particular person, perhaps humanity
in general?
"The Ocean Doesn't Want Me" is spoken word and its tortured narrator is offered
little relief from his pain, but "Jesus Gonna Be Here" offers faith amidst all
the despair, as the song has a spiritual or gospel-like quality to it. "Little
Rain (For Clyde)" is another ballad and its lyrics suggest we should have strength
when dealing with pain. This sounds weird but I think he totally sounds like
The Simpsons' Krusty the Clown on "In The Colosseum", the song's narrator sounding
like a circus showman.
"Murder In The Red Barn" is the kind of murder mystery song Nick Cave would
write and the lyrics to "I Don't Wanna Grow Up" sound like punk lyrics. Actually,
I think the Descendents did write a song by the same name.
So this is probably not the best place to start if you're just thinking of getting
some Waits albums, or are searching for something to lift your spirits, but
there is much to discover here. There is no doubt Waits exorcized some of his
personal demons on this scary trip.
Any comments or reviews to grant us with?
I was recently in a record shop in which a Tom Waits album was playing. "God, turn it OFF!" complained the pierced punky girl at the front cash with her hands over her ears, "it sounds like he's DYING". An acquired taste is how most music experts describe Waits' music, and not without good reason. If you approach his music expecting a sweetly crooning balladeer, then you'll be quickly disapointed, as Waits has become infamous for writing sweet ballads, but his voice is something else altogether. Raspy and rough, it resembles a pint of Guinness stout - bitter and hard to swallow at first, but that very bitterness is what one comes to expect and eventually appreciates after subsequent tastes. Mule Varations was released in 1999, after a six year hiatus Waits had taken after his last album The Black Rider. He finally emerged on Epitaph records, a label more notorious for its neo-punk bands such as Pennywise and Bad Religion. And what an album it turned out to be! Producing the album and writing most of the songs with his wife Kathleen Brennan, the sixteen songs showcase Waits' chameleon-like tendencies to shift and experiment with styles and sounds, all firmly rooted in his bluesy, jazzy influences. The results are nothing short of stunning. "Big In Japan" opens the album with heavy clanging sounds and a great horn section. Waits has always been a master of the "non musical instrument", favouring strange sounds such as pots and pans being smacked together, or something that resembles someone banging on a bathtub. All these sounds work well when counterbalanced with the traditional double bass/drums/guitar setting. There is something very human and "earthy" about the production and mix for this album...almost like a live jazz setting. "Hold On" is one of several ballads on the record, but remains my favourite track with its gently strummed guitar and poignant lyrics.
Fans have grown to expect Waits to hit them with his poetry, as his lyrics define him as much a writer as a musician. "Cookin' up a Filipino box spring hog!!" is the chorus for the abrasive song of the same name on Variations. He can assume characters or narrative voices in his songs, and with the slightest turn of phrase, evoke the most unusual of images. "I'm on a black elevator goin' down/little Joe from Kokomo with rattles to the ground" he lazily growls on "Lowside of the Road". "What's He Building In There?" is the album's only spoken-word track and a weird one it is. With all kinds of hissing and squealing in the background, Waits assumes the persona of a nosy neighbour spying on the shady character next door. I love this track so much, it made me wish he'd included more spoken word stuff on the album. So it was definitely worth the six year wait for this near-perfect collection of songs. Some may complain that at 70 minutes, it's too long, but for me, it's one of those long albums that goes by quick. It's defintely one, like most of his albums, that not only demands repeated listenings, it damn well grabs you by the lapels and threatens in its Waitsean croak "listen to me goddamit!!".
Any comments or reviews to grant us with?