Having branched out on the previous album Waits continued to explore the limits of his music, almost inventing instruments and shunning the popular digital electronic recording process. As he said himself, “If I want a particular sound I'd rather get it by going into the bathroom and hitting the door really hard with a piece of two by four.” No samples for our Tom! Although he did, technically, use samples in the recording of this, his eighth album, when he used an old-style cassette recorder to capture the sounds of the street - traffic, people walking, dogs barking etc - in order to infuse this new album with a feeling of being right down there among the people. His second album without Bones Howe and the continuation, in many ways, of
Swordfishtrombones, this album is, if possible, even weirder and in places even more beautiful.
Rain Dogs (1985)
A double album, this would be, apart from
Nighthawks at the Diner, Waits's longest yet, clocking in at almost fifty-four minutes and with a total of nineteen tracks. He explores many different genres in it, and it opens with a boppy cousin of “Underground” melding with “Shore Leave” as “Singapore” kicks right out of the traps. Waits's vocal is again that hoarse, ragged whisper we've started to become used to, the song driven on thick double bass and powerful percussion. There are some great lines in it, such as
”In the land of the blind/ The one-eyed man is king” and
”Every witness turns to steam/ They all become Italian dreams.” Next it's a slow, almost funereal tune with timpani and marimba in “Clap Hands”, Waits more restrained on the vocal here, then it's a polka as he brings in accordion for “Cemetery Polka”, with the hilarious line
”We must find out where the money is/ Get it now before he loses his mind!”
Typical of Waits, of course, after all this madness and experimentation he's back to simple acoustic guitar for “Jockey Full of Bourbon”, percussion again playing a big part in the song, with a kind of muttered vocal from Waits before he comes alive for “Tango Till They're Sore”, one of the first songs of his I ever heard - and I hated it - but I can see his genius now. He sings like a man drunk, reeling all over the place as he sings
”Put my clarinet beneath your bed/ Till I get back in town”. The discordant piano from “The Piano Has Been Drinking” is back, as he weaves expertly in and out of the tune, fat trombone adding a real New Orleans touch, delivered by the perfectly-named Bob Funk. He kicks into full gear then for the manic “Big Black Mariah”, featuring guitar from the legendary Keith Richards. This melody and vocal style, at least the beginning, foreshadows the later “Earth Died Screaming” on his
Bone Machine album. There's a lot of blues and swing in this, and it rocks along nicely.
Things slow down then for a few tracks, as “Diamonds and Gold” is a low-key short track with banjo from Robert Musso, the return of the marimbas and a sort of almost slurred vocal, tracing the basic melody of “Hushabye Mountain” before Waits interprets the folk standard “Tom Dooley” in his own inimitable way as “Hang Down Your Head” is his first collaboration with his wife, Kathleen Brennan. It actually has a nice country-ish electric guitar from Marc Ribot and pump organ from Waits himself. Good solo from Ribot, then we're into one of the standouts with “Time”, the first real ballad on the album. Again it's a low-key, almost disinterested vocal from Waits, lovely sad accordion as William Shimmel reprises his role from “Cemetery Polka”, soft strummed guitar from Waits.
Shimmel remains and opens the title track, which is then taken by Ribot with some uptempo guitar, mournful trombone from Funk and those marimbas again. The first of two instrumentals follows as the quite frenetic “Midtown” is driven by the Uptown Horns with a kind of sixties cop-show theme, dashing all over the place and bringing us into another standout, “9th and Hennepin”. Again I've written extensively about this song, but in case you haven't read that, it's a spoken word piece backed by clarinet, marimba and piano. Some incredible lines in the lyric:
”I'm lost in the window/ I hide in the stairway/ And I hang in the curtain/ And I sleep in your hat.” Banjo and percussion drive “Gun Street Girl”, very folk-oriented; one of the lines is
”Bangin' on a table/ With an old tin cup” and sure knowing Waits, maybe they are!
“Union Square” hits the tempo back up then, with a raw, manic vocal from Waits in a sort of jazzy rocker, Keith Richards making another appearance, then after that Waits turns his attention to country with his first pure country song, “Blind love”, and it could certainly hold its own among the likes of Haggard and Nelson. More guitar from Richards, who also adds backing vocals to this gem, and some superb violin from Ross Levinson. We're back then in
Blue Valentine territory for “Walking Spanish”, and a song made famous by Rod Stewart is another standout in “Downtown Train”. If you've only heard Rod's version then you need to hear the original. That's all I'll say.
The second, and final instrumental is barely a minute long and features just harmonium, sax and drums as “Bride of Rain Dog” reprises some of the melody of the title track, messed about in the lovingly chaotic way Waits loves to do, then we end on “Anywhere I Lay My Head”, as the Uptown Horns return to finish us off on a gospel-inspired hunk of craziness as Waits really goes for it on the vocal. Testify, brother! Testify!
TRACK LISTING
1. Singapore
2. Clap Hands
3. Cemetery Polka
4. Jockey Full of Bourbon
5. Tango Till They're Sore
6. Big Black Mariah
7. Diamonds and Gold
8. Hang Down Your Head
9. Time
10. Rain Dogs
11. Midtown
12. 9th and Hennepin
13. Gun Street Girl
14. Union Square
15. Blind Love
16. Walking Spanish
17. Downtown Train
18. Bride of Rain Dog
19. Anywhere I Lay My Head
Rarely have I listened to an album with so many different styles, genres and ideas mixed together which still managed to be a cohesive whole and come out triumphantly on top. With this album, once and for all Waits proved that he could not be boxed, labelled, categorised or indeed equalled. A man with whom, quite literally, you did not know what was coming next, he would forever surprise, confound and delight. With almost impish glee, he would change his style, then change it back, do something new, look back to his past, subvert genres and even invent new ones as he continued his crusade to be something utterly different, indefinable and absolutely magnificent.
At this point, it seemed the time might have arrived to declare a new genre of music: Tom Waits.
Rating: 9.9/10