Tom Waits: Album by Album Thread

Night On Earth is such a cool background music album. Glad I got it, but I can see why people don't think about it all the time. Really enjoyable, but a little slight.

 

An old friend of mine was working security at a concert once when Waits got in the elevator, eating an orange, looking like a bum. My friend tried to kick him out.

 

I'm on a bus right now, 9.20am, listening to the Heartattack & Vine album for the first time. The only albums I own are Raindogs & Frank's (although I've downloaded them all recently in order to work through them and purchase the ones I really like in physical format) but I'm really enjoying this one. I expect even better listening in the evening than heading to the office!

 

It took me a long time to appreciate him, but I really like Rain Dogs. Very cool album.

 

Does anyone know if a prospective reissue campaign may be on the horizon, either vinyl or cd? Debating whether to take the plunge and buy the existing cds in print or wait.

 

I have not seen any news regarding a reissue campaign, and Waits actively put the kibosh on planned expanded reissues of a couple of his early Asylum albums back in the late 1990s. Based on that, my suspicion is that he isn't very interested in revisiting his back catalogue. I think the expanded reissue of the One From The Heart soundtrack was beyond Waits' control, given the complicated rights arrangements for that music. Given that the existing CDs shouldn't be very expensive to acquire, and the sound quality is perfectly acceptable for all of them, I wouldn't wait around for a possible future reissue campaign.

 

Thanks, so on the basis of this advice (excuse I was looking for) I went out and bought 7 of his cds today. Working through them chronologically this weekend!

 

Sitting down to listen to the vinyl of Frank's Wild Years that I bought last week and was surprised to find a tall, 15 page book inside with lyrics (also printed across the inside of the gatefold sleeve) and interview with Tom regarding the play and songs.

I bought a used copy, does anyone know if the reissue is a gatefold sleeve?

 

Mine is a gatefold

https://www.discogs.com/Tom-Waits-Franks-Wild-Years/release/776800

No 15 page book,but lyrics on the inside of the gatefold.

 

His catalog us hit and miss on the reissue front. The rhino release of Closing Time is awesome. I've got a more recent Rain Dogs but haven't critically listened to it but I've got that of SHM-SACD too.

The missing prize is Heartattack and Vine, I've got a vinyl original but it is due a reissue. It's a great example of his previous work and where his sound would eventually go. Also look up his story tellers download it's a really good example of Tom in all his glory, he really was the original "story teller"!

 

I'm referring to the latest 180g reissue from around 5yrs ago

 

....

Bone Machine

1. "Earth Died Screaming" Waits 3:39
2. "Dirt in the Ground" 4:08
3. "Such a Scream" Waits 2:07
4. "All Stripped Down" Waits 3:04
5. "Who Are You" 3:58
6. "The Ocean Doesn't Want Me" Waits 1:51
7. "Jesus Gonna Be Here" Waits 3:21
8. "A Little Rain (for Clyde)" 2:58
9. "In the Colosseum" 4:50
10. "Goin' Out West" 3:19
11. "Murder in the Red Barn" 4:29
12. "Black Wings" 4:37
13. "Whistle Down the Wind (for Tom Jans)" Waits 4:36
14. "I Don't Wanna Grow Up" 2:31
15. "Let Me Get Up on It" Waits 0:55
16. "That Feel" Waits, Keith Richards 3:11

All songs written by Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan, unless otherwise indicated

Produced by Tom Waits
Recorded at Prairie Sun Recording, Cotati, CA; Spring-Summer 1992
Released September 1992

Five years on from his last album of new songs and now fully ensconced in his rural northern California surroundings, Tom Waits found himself in a new frame of mind when it came time to write and record his next full-fledged album. He had begun sporadically writing with his wife as far back as the early 1980s, but now found the writing partnership integral to his working methods. Waits distilled the songs that would eventually appear on Bone Machine from a list of 60 or so demo ideas he had worked up over the previous few years. Working with bassist Larry Taylor, who had become one of Waits' closest musical collaborators, and using a storage room off to the side of the main studio at the small Prairie Sun operation outside Santa Rosa, the musicians laid the foundations for the album's songs. Waits wanted to the sound of the album to reflect its title, a metaphor for the human body. Mechanical and rattling, albeit in an extremely low-tech manner.

In addition to Taylor and Waits, supplementary musicians made their way to Prairie Sun to lend various instrumental touches to the tracks. Los Lobos' David Hidalgo on fiddle and accordion, old pal Ralph Carney, and Les Claypool of Primus were among the participants. If Waits' new-found sobriety and his new guise as a rural family man might have suggested an album filled with paeans to nature and family, Bone Machine proved to be quite a shock. From the clattering shrieking and apocalyptic firestorm of the opening "Earth Died Screaming" to the bashed-out noise orgy on "In The Colosseum", the album is perhaps the darkest and least mythological of Waits' works. "Dirt In The Ground" informs the listener that "your spirit don't leave knowing your face or your name...the wind through your bones is all that remains". "All Stripped Down" reinforces the apocalyptic theme of ultimate judgment, while "The Ocean Doesn't Want Me" describes a failed suicide attempt (not one by Waits, fortunately). "Jesus Gonna Be Here" introduces a warped gospel element to the sonic chaos, but continues the album's themes of human frailty and divine judgment.

In its back half, the album moves away from outright blackness and despair towards a sort of twisted melancholy, typified by the sad ballad "A Little Rain" (inspired by local news accounts of a child abduction) and the rural dread of "Murder in The Red Barn". "Goin' Out West" is one of the album's few songs that call to mind Waits' earlier material with its story of a rambler on the search for fame and recognition in the bright lights of Hollywood. "Black Wings" brings us back to the ominous feel of the first part of the record, with its unnamed entity (death? Satan?) bent on human destruction.

Some tenderness finally appears in the final four songs on the album, first in "Whistle Down The Wind", a song dedicated to Tom Jans, an old songwriter friend of Waits' and Brennan's who had died a particularly sad death in 1983. The song is quite touching in its poetic treatment of the subject. "I Don't Wanna Grow Up" is a sort of adult lament in the guise of a sea chantey. The album's closer, "That Feel", is a collaboration with Keith Richards -- apparently one of several tracks the two had co-written during a writing session sometime in the very early 90s (the others have not appeared anywhere else to my knowledge). Richards contributes to the recording (he did his parts at a NYC studio, and Waits grafted them on to the basic track). The song certainly ends the album on a positive, benedictive note - the body may wither and die but the soul will endure.

For me, Bone Machine is an album that is much easier to admire than it is to love. From an artistic standpoint, it was certainly an impressive comeback after several years on the margins. The album received glowing reviews and decent (for Waits) sales. Nonetheless, the record's subject matter and its raucous, ominous discordancies make it a tough one for me to want to listen to on a regular basis. Still, by any standard, it is one of the more impressive records in Waits' canon.

Short summary: A challenging, yet ultimately rewarding listen for those desiring a deeper dive into Waits' music. May require several listens before it begins to resonate.

 

I've been working through his back catalogue up to and incl. FWY's (that and Raindogs I've owned for 20 or so years, along with Mule, but the rest is pretty much new to me). This album, Bone Machine I played for the first time in its entirety this afternoon. Need to a few more plays but I liked it a lot, I'm more a fan of the "bawlers" but I like the opening track and of course I Don't Wanna Grow Up" (which I bought by the Ramones when they released it). Will be playing this album this week. (The earlier stuff makes me crave a good drink so I'm saving those albums for the weekends when I can stay up late and drink without guilt or a hangover!)

 

Despite the fact that Waits went on to create a lot of terrific music after, I think Bone Machine is the last time he made a real aesthetic leap in his development. It's the culmination of the remarkable process of development he'd been undergoing since he began working on Swordfishtrombones. There would be some lateral developments later--further explorations of certain things (the influence of Weil on The Black Rider, some more pushing of the noise limits on Real Gone), but basically everything he'd continue working with from this point on is now not just outlined but fully realized.

L.

 

"Bone Machine" is a masterpiece. Theatrical and mad.

 

I definitely admire this album more than I love it, but I do agree with the previous poster that it feels like a the end point to a progression in his music that, for me, began around the time of Heartattack & Vine when he began moving away from the 70s crooner style. It seems that the pendulum swung back after this album and stopped in the middle, with future albums being more a combination of his 70s and 90s sounds (i.e. one banging on bones song followed by one ballad followed by one banging on bones song).

That's not to say that I don't still love his new music, just that he has sort of hit on style and continues to release albums within that style (kind of like how he did mid-70s). It's amazing to me what a run of albums he had in the 80s and how astonishing it must have been to have followed him at the time. The one thing that seems to have stuck with him through all these changes is his utter brilliance at songwriting. Strip away a lot of the banging and screaming and you just have incredible lyrics.

Now the woods will never tell
What sleeps beneath the trees
Or what's buried 'neath a rock
Or hiding in the leaves
Cause road kill has it's seasons
Just like anything
It's possums in the autumn
And it's farm cats in the spring

 

Man does Bone Machine need a vinyl reissue. Great album.

 

Fantastic album, and though I do enjoy Tom's preceding work it was more here and there whereas moving forward I find a string of albums I enjoy more completely, which continues to this day. I guess I'm wired this way. I respond more to lunatic in the cellar banging things together more than drunk balladeer guy. I agree about a vinyl reissue for this one. I have a questionable copy just to say I have it and complete my collection but it's nothing to write home about. The Ramones cover of "I Don't Want To Grow Up" is a favorite of mine but the original is great too. "In the Colosseum" is another stand out for me. "Murder in the Red Barn" ditto. "A Little Rain" is a beautiful piece. "Such a Scream" is such a wicked groove. Hot guitar. I like. Great record.

 

Yes on both of your main points. It really was exciting to follow Waits from 1980 through the early '90s. It was one leap after another, and it felt pretty breathless as these things go. In fact, it was so exciting that the pause between The Black Rider and Mule Variations felt like an eternity and the album that finally emerged (wonderful as it is) felt very disappointing. It felt like Waits had settled into a holding pattern or had even stagnated. I know that's unfair, and time has let the native virtues of Mule Variations to come though clearly to me, but I did feel a loss of artistic momentum, that feeling of continued discovery and invention. Now it's clear that the drama was the achievement of a style--or a range of related styles and a method of operation. And it's a very powerful achievement that has continued to yield exciting work.

L.

 

Well said, though I must admit that for my money Mule Variations is probably the most listened to and enjoyable album of his for me. It's just really, really solid throughout and, while yes was the start of a kind of "holding pattern," it's just a strong album. After that it just feels like each album is just a notch down from the previous one. So yeah, while continuing to yield exciting work, just not on par album-wise with what came before it.

But now re-reading what I've written, it sounds much harsher than I mean. Even Real Gone had some songs that would make it to a "best of bone banging" playlist for me (Hoist that Rag, Make it Rain...). No one else sounds like him and no one else is still releasing such exciting work after 40 or 50 years of being in the business.

But I digress. One of my best memories of Bone Machine was camping with friends in the middle of the forest and my friend cuing up Earth Died Screaming, to which we marched and screamed and danced around the fire.

 

I agree that Mule Variations is a really strong album. Over time it has revealed itself to be one of his very best collections. I feel the same way about Bad as Me, although it was easier to see the strength of that one right away.

Alice, Blood Money, and Real Gone are all a notch below that, and Orphans has some unevenness in its sprawling trawl through various odds and ends and unreleased things, but all of these have fantastic stuff on them.

It may be a holding pattern, but it's a very good pattern. I wish it were a little more regular and that there were more of it, but I don't want to seem greedy!

L.

 

Time for the next one? (Though I'm still focussing on the first phase of his career.) I bought the latest issue of Uncut in the UK yesterday with Tom on the cover and an exploration of the recording of a number of his albums with the musicians who worked with him on them

 

Planning to put up the next one this evening; had a very busy weekend so couldn't get to it.

 

The Black Rider

1. "Lucky Day (Overture)" – 2:27
2. "The Black Rider" – 3:21
3. "November" – 2:53
4. "Just the Right Bullets" – 3:35
5. "Black Box Theme" (instrumental) – 2:42
6. "'T' Ain't No Sin" (Walter Donaldson/Edgar Leslie) – 2:25
7. "Flash Pan Hunter/Intro" (instrumental) – 1:10
8. "That's the Way" (music: Waits, lyrics: Burroughs) – 1:07
9. "The Briar and the Rose" – 3:50
10. "Russian Dance" (instrumental) – 3:12
11. "Gospel Train/Orchestra" (instrumental) – 2:33
12. "I'll Shoot the Moon" – 3:51
13. "Flash Pan Hunter" (music: Waits, lyrics: Burroughs) – 3:10
14. "Crossroads" (music: Waits, lyrics: Burroughs) – 2:43
15. "Gospel Train" – 4:43
16. "Interlude" (Greg Cohen) (instrumental) – 0:18
17. "Oily Night" – 4:23
18. "Lucky Day" – 3:42
19. "The Last Rose of Summer" – 2:07
20. "Carnival" (instrumental) – 1:15

All songs written by Tom Waits unless otherwise noted

Produced by Tom Waits
Recorded Spring 1989 at Music Factory, Hamburg, Germany (Tracks 2, 3, 6–9, 14–16, 19, 20) & late 1992/early 1993 at Prairie Sun Recording, Cotati CA (Tracks 1, 4, 5, 10–13, 17, 18)
Mixed at Sunset Sound, Hollywood CA
Released September 1993

Wasting no time following the release of Bone Machine, Tom Waits immediately set to work on a documentation of the music he had written and demoed in Hamburg back in 1989 as the musical basis for avant-garde playwright/director Robert Wilson's musical The Black Rider, which had been staged in Hamburg in 1990. The musical had been based on an old German folktale, reimagined for the modern world by Wilson and American beat icon William Burroughs, with whom Waits and Wilson had met in Kansas prior to heading to Germany to write and record the songs. Burroughs would later join the team in Hamburg to put the finishing touches on the text of the play as well as some of the songs. (Side note: an excellent overview of the play and its origins is provided at Tom Waits Library - The Black Rider »)

As had been the case a decade prior on One From The Heart, the commission to prepare the music for The Black Rider thrust Waits into a completely different arena of composition and sound assemblage. Working at night in Gerd Bessler's Hamburg Music Factory studio, Waits and Greg Cohen wrote and demoed songs that were then brought to Wilson the next morning. The recordings were crude and rudimentary, serving to provide Wilson with something to which the next portion of the play could be set. Through this process, Wilson and Waits had fashioned a close relationship that would bear further creative fruit over the subsequent decade. The music Waits and Cohen created was certainly Germanic in feel, with obvious inspiration from Kurt Weill and Hanns Eisler. In keeping with the theme of the story, the songs were almost unremittingly somber and heavy. Even the few more traditionally "Waitsian" pieces ("November", "Gospel Train", and "The Briar and the Rose") were characterized by a certain bleakness. Waits later wrote that their goal was to create music that was "absurd, terrifying, and fragile".

After the theatrical production had concluded, Waits was left with this batch of songs that he felt should see official release, as the overall experience had been so deeply rewarding to him from a personal and artistic standpoint. Using the Hamburg tapes as a base, and discarding two of the songs from the play ("Chase The Clouds Away" and "In The Morning", neither of which have seen official release to date), Waits worked with his cadre of Bay Area musicians at his "home" studio in Sonoma County recording overdubs and, in some cases, entirely new versions of the remaining songs. Waits also utilized the services of a group of Bay Area-based experimental musicians, including several horn players, on the recordings.

The resulting album, held for release until a year after Bone Machine had appeared in order to provide a sufficient gap between releases, is a demanding listen that is quite unlike virtually anything Waits had previously put out. The album plays as a collection of songs sharing a mood and feel, and perhaps a sense of place, but which are not linked by any specific narrative thread, despite their origins. A few of the lyrics were given modifications that took them away from the world of the musical's story and set them in the more familiar Waits universe (for example, "The Briar and the Rose" was retrofitted into a love song to Waits' wife, Kathleen Brennan). "Taint No Sin" is a 1920s song that Burroughs had sung to Wilson and Waits at their initial meeting to discuss the musical and was subsequently worked into the storyline of the play. The music on the album is perhaps the most instrumentally unusual of Waits' career, and seems the least beholden to "American" motifs (unsurprisingly so).

Short summary: The Black Rider is a challenging album, yes, but it is also one that is engaging, fascinating, and, ultimately, quite rewarding. While certainly not on the frontline of Waits albums, it represents the first flowering of what would eventually become a major source of inspiration in Waits' late period work.

 

Bone Machine for me is maddeningly uneven. It contains some of my favorite TW songs ever but it also has stuff on it that sounds like Tom was starting to run out of gas creatively. My buddy calls it his 'Midgets on the Midway' period. I loved Black Rider because it was so different and really was the record that heralded the next phase of his creative career.