The second album in this series would be released two years later, but about six months before his next album, and would contain songs that not only would feature on
Closing Time but the followup to that also. Like volume one though, it also has a lot of tracks that are new at first listen, again recorded around 1971, before he even had a record deal.
The Early Years, Volume 2 (1993)
The first two tracks we know, as they’re both on the debut, though “I Hope That I Don’t Fall in Love With You” is played slower but somehow sung a little faster than the version that would end up on the album, sort of more relaxed. He also hums some of the lines, probably having not quite worked out all the lyric at that point. The version of “Ol’ 55” is quite different though with a folky guitar intro, unaccompanied by any percussion, the vocal more low-key, chords a little different. Nice soft guitar solo too. Definitely worth hearing. He also gets the lines mixed up when he sings
”Lights all passing/ Trucks are a flashin’” which makes it all the more honest and demo-like.
“Mockin’ Bird” is a song I’ve never heard though, and brings in the chimy. echoey piano we would become so familiar with during the early part of his career. More whistling, with a song the most uptempo on the album so far, quite bouncy and almost poppy in its way, while “In Between Love” slows it all down again with an acoustic ballad on guitar, but “Blue Skies” is really just retreading the ground trod on “I’m Your Late Night Evening Prostitute” and, to a smaller extent, “Goin’ Down Slow”. It’s something of a disappointment for an artiste of Waits’s calibre and originality to find that he is here plundering the same basic melody for a different song. But he does it so seldom, if ever other than here, that I guess we can forgive him. The only song that made it on to [i]Nighthawks at the Diner/i], “Nobody” is here sung pretty much the same as it is on that incredible "live" event, piano backed and with a sad, drawly vocal from Waits.
With a sort of Simon and Garfunkel pop sensibility, “I Want You” is a decent little song but a little below par for Waits, not a lot in it;, it’s quite short too. The next four tracks are all from his second album, and I must say the version of “Shiver Me Timbers” is worth hearing for the different way he approaches it, none of the laidback piano - this is far more staccato - and no orchestra of course, then “Grapefruit Moon”, never one of my favourite songs on
The Heart of Saturday Night is pretty much a carbon copy of the eventual version that was published, minus the descending end run on the piano, which is weird because it ended up being such an integral part of the song. I’m interested to see how the original “Diamonds On My Windshield” sounded, as this is the first time I have heard this album, and I feel that song rides so much on the bassline it will be hard to duplicate in this stripped-down demo.
Well he does a good bass on it, the vocal kind of more uptempo jazz than it turned out, a sort of muttered one on the album. Bringing the piano in on it is something different for certain, but I don’t think it really works and I guess he came to the same conclusion as it’s not on the “real” version. Think he may have added lyrics here, not completely sure but then Waits can write on the fly, we all know that. The last song then off
The Heart of Saturday Night is “Please Call Me Baby”, a bit rough and ready on the piano but basically the same song, though the orchestral backing on the final version turn out to be what makes the song in the end.
That leaves two tracks, and I feel that one of them may be yet another off
Closing time but we’ll see shortly. The penultimate track is “So it Goes”, nice little folky acoustic ballad, kind of reminds me of later Steve Earle, echoes of “Halo Round the Moon”. And I was right: the final track is called “Old Shoes” but became “Old Shoes (And Picture Postcards”) on the debut, and to be fair there’s not much difference in the version here and the one that ended up on his album.
TRACK LISTING
1.Hope That I Don’t Fall in Love With You
2.Ol’ 55
3.Mockin’ Bird
4.In Between Love
5.Blue Skies
6.Nobody
7.I Want You
8.Shiver Me Timbers
9.Grapefruit Moon
10.Diamonds On My Windshield
11.Please Call Me Baby
12.So it Goes
13.Old Shoes
If what I said about volume one being poor value for money, viewed from one perception, is true, then this second volume really rips the buyer off. No less than eight tracks are “old” songs, more than half the album. Some of the originals are worth hearing, some are not, and as for the new songs, well I’m sorry to say that generally they’re a poor lot really. I certainly prefer volume one, but even at that, the two albums taken together give a real snapshot of a man on the cusp of greatness, of a master songsmith honing his trade and finding his place, and show us the kind of musician, and the eventual enigma and phenomenon Tom Waits was going to become.
Rating: 7.0/10