If you thought, at this point, that you knew and had a fairly decent handle on the music of Tom Waits, well what happened next should have shown you the danger of adding up immature roosters before they have broken out of the shell. Although the next album Waits would release had some recognisable influences yet from his previous body of work, this is pretty much where he entered the studio more as a scientist than a musician, if you like. That's a very bad analogy, but what I mean is that from here on in Waits experimented more with his music. He started trying out odd rhythms, strange singing patterns, weird lyrics and brought in instruments he had previously never used, like shaker, African talking drum, bagpipes and glass harmonica. In short, it was a total seachange for the man, and must have taken his fans by surprise when it originally hit.
The album also marks the end of a long partnership, as Waits decided to dispense with the services of producer Bones Howe, taking the controls of the mixing desk and sitting in the director's chair himself, solidifying his grip over his music. This is the first album he self-produced, and once he got the hang of and the taste for it, there was no going back. Although he had by this time met Kathleen Brennan, and her tastes would inform much of his music from here on in, she has no actual input into this album and only co-wrote one song on the next one. Waits had, and has, always been a man to jealously guard the creation of his music, treating it like his baby, as he would later reveal on the collection of unused songs released on triple CD in 2006. But here is where you can see the effects of Captain Beefheart (apparently) to whose music Brennan introduced him, and which obviously impacted upon him strongly.
Swordfishtrombones (1983)
It had been three years since Waits had been in the studio to record his own music, and it certainly shows, in a fresh, powerful, often disturbing and also beautiful collection of songs that run the gamut from zany to heartbreakingly sad. As if making a conscious decision to be “less mainstream”, although Waits wouldn't know the mainstream if he fell into it and drowned, the album kicks off with “Underground”, a stomping, swaggering almost muted sound which sounds like trombone or tuba but seems like it may be a bass marimba. Whatever, it's not only the music that is weirdly out of the ordinary here: Waits growls the vocal with a kind of almost barking cadence, chomping down on each word sharply, like someone saying “I – told – you – once...” The song itself seems to be about maybe the city after dark, as he sings
”They're alive, they're awake/ While the rest of the world is asleep” and may refer back to the many unfortunate and pathetic characters who people albums such as
The Heart of Saturday Night and
Small Change. It may not; it's a strange song.
Things get weirder then with “Shore Leave”, percussion provided by Waits hitting a chair off the floor, seriously, and a strange kind of moaning, screeching sound with timpani and other odd instruments meshing with guitar, marimba and trombone, much of the vocal spoken
sotto-voce by Waits. It details the exploits of a sailor, far from home, as he tries to fill up the time before he has to go back to his ship. The chorus is the only sung part, in a sort of hoarse whisper.
I was pacing myself he says
”Tryin' to make it all last/ Tryin' to squeeze all the life/ Out of a lousy two day pass.” It's followed by an instrumental as Waits gets behind the Hammond and racks out a spooky, chilling carnival-like tune that goes by the name of “Dave the Butcher”, then, being Waits, he changes tack completely with one of his soft aching ballads as he pays tribute to the town in which Kathleen was born, “Johnsburg, Illinois.”
It's a pained, emotional vocal which has him almost hoarse with quiet passion, and accompanied only by piano, which he plays himself, and bass. It's a very short song, only a minute and a half, but the amount of love that's poured into its run is truly exceptional. The basic melody would later be revisited in part on another song further along on the album. Then, as if to say BOO! He launches into “Sixteen Shells From a Thirty-ought-six”, with heavy, choppy electric guitar and thumping percussion, the vocal raw and ragged, the song structure virtually nonexistent, just verse following verse. There's a great beat to it though, lots of percussion and bells. One thing that doesn't, and probably never will change in Waits's music though is the characters who populate it, and they're all here, from the shore leavetaking sailor to the gin-soaked boy in the song of the same name and the dead soldier in “Soldier's Things”, not to mention Frank making a pre-appearance before the album which would bear his name in “Frank's Wild Years”. Up next though is a slow, morose ballad driven on piano with a strained, almost defeated vocal in “Town With No Cheer”. This is also the first time Waits uses bagpipes, through they're only used in the short intro.
This album also marks the end of the “short” Waits albums, as I think I mentioned previously. With fifteen tracks, this is a far cry from any of his older albums, most of which had seven or eight tracks. This is a format he would continue throughout his career; whether it was just that he was writing more and wanted to use more, or he wanted to give better value to his fans, or even that he didn't even realise he was doing it, from this on in Waits albums would always give great bang for buck, few less than twelve tracks in length. There's a bit of a return to the old form for “In the Neighborhood”, a song of claustrophobia and hopelessness, a feeling of being trapped in a one-horse town (a theme Waits used quite a lot). The tone is doleful, almost funeral as he utilises a lot of trombone and slow percussion, baritone horn and organ.
Another instrumental in “Just Another Sucker On the Vine”, which he plays almost entirely solo on the harmonium, with some assistance from trumpet and then we're into “Frank's Wild Years”, which I have written about already. Carried on the somewhat madcap organ of Ronnie Barron, it features Waits basically talking the lyric, almost in a bored monotone as he tells the story of Frank who, fed up with his life, burns his house to the ground and heads off for a new life. This would, as I've intimated, lead to a whole album based on a play Waits would write with Kathleen. It, and all the succeeding tracks, are short, some less than three minutes long, and the next one up is the title, with just the “s” removed. “Swordfishtrombone” runs on a marimba and conga rhythm, with nothing else but bass supporting the tune, while the much shorter “Down, Down, Down” has the full band, and is a faster, more frenetic affair with a jazzy, syncopated beat and Waits returning to the somewhat harsher vocal of “Sixteen Shells”.
After that we slow everything down for another piano ballad, and again I've featured “Soldier's Things” in detail before, so I'll just say it's the gut-wrenching aftermath of a funeral, as the soldier's widow (we assume) tries to make some cash by selling off his personal effects. It's totally heartbreaking, and if you want to read more about it check here
http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...ml#post1206215. It has, as I mentioned above, something of the melody of "Johnsburg, Illinois", in it. That leaves us with three tracks to go, all short, and “Gin Soaked Boy” comes a little towards the idea of “Sixteen Shells” again with a hard grinding guitar and thumping percussion, another growled vocal with a lot of power in it, while “Trouble's Braids” recalls the basic rhythm of “Red Shoes By the Drugstore” with another muttered vocal and virtually no instruments bar drums and bass. We end then on one more instrumental, with no less than four glass harmonicas as “Rainbirds” ends a pretty stunning album.
TRACK LISTING
1. Underground
2. Shore Leave
3. Dave the Butcher
4. Johnsburg, Illinois
5. Sixteen Shells From a Thirty-ought-six
6. Town With No Cheer
7. In the Neighborhood
8. Just Another Sucker On the Vine
9. Frank's Wild Years
10. Swordfishtrombone
11. Down, Down, Down
12. Soldier's Things
13. Gin Soaked Boy
14. Trouble's Braids
15. Rainbirds
The variety on this album is pretty staggering, even given the sort of thing Waits had given us up to now. This is a man almost reborn, stretching his musical muscles and testing the limits of his talent and creativity. There aren't too many other artists who would get away with some of the tracks here and not lose some of their fans, or at least cause some puzzled looks. But at this point we've kind of learned to expect the unexpected with Tom Waits, and this is just the beginning. Next time out he would venture further into the unknown, like a man on a spacewalk who suddenly considers letting go and just floating into the vast mystery of space, taking us all with him.
Rating: 9.7/10