Tom Waits "Rain Dogs"

                  Stepping in to this assignment, I had an impression built up in my head of what Tom Waits’ album would sound like, even though I have never taken the time to listen to his music. I’ve known what he looks like for a while; seeing him act in movies like Wristcutters and Domino. I was also well aware of his voice, as he has made a reputation out of how unique it is. It sounds incredibly raspy (think Nick Nolte) with a blues like quality that I found really works for the music he makes.

                  The album, Rain Dogs, is all over the place. Now, that sounds like a bad thing, but it’s not. There are sounds from at least half a dozen genres and twice as many instruments, but it works. Songs like “Cemetery Polka” sound like a dirge, with brassy horns and an accordion that I could imagine playing down the streets of New Orleans during a funeral. “Tango Til They’re Sore” and “Walking Spanish” have the soul of old blues songs, played in smokey jazz clubs. There are instrumental numbers, like “Midtown”, and a spoken word piece titled “9^th and Hennepin”. “Hang Down your Head” and “Downtown Train” both reminded me of Bruce Springsteen songs for some reason. That might be the raspy quality to both of their voices, but I could picture Bruce writing those songs just as easily as I could Tom Waits. “Blind Love” is a classic country song, and Waits’ closes his album with a gospel, “Anywhere I Lay My Head”.

                  It’s not even just his music that hops between styles from song to song. Waits seems to be able to affect his voice in different ways, giving it entirely different tones based on the sound he needs. In the opening track, “Singapore”, his voice is loud and punchy. It also sounds more gravelly than later on, as if the hoarse quality is intentional. Later on, however, he softens is voice and lightens it up,  which is more appropriate for the ballad-like quality of the song “Time”.

Even though there are a variety of styles used, there’s this string that runs through every single song, weaving them together to create one cohesive album. I think a lot of this has to do with Waits’ voice. His tone is so unique to only him, and by putting his voice on a song, he immediately makes the tune his own. Every song also has this certain level of dissonance behind it. Whether it’s a squealing trumpet, purposefully out of place guitar notes, or what sounds like a train, there’s this messiness to this album that creates a nightmarish quality to the music.

It’s not just the sound of the music that ties it all together. It’s also the themes that are present. I’m not going to pretend I always knew what he was talking about in his songs. His lyrics are very poetic and hard to decipher. In his song “Time”, for instance, one of his verses is “Well things are pretty lousy for a calendar girl/The boys just dive right off the cars and splash into the street/And when they're on a roll she pulls a razor from her boot/And a thousand pigeons fall around her feet”. I am not quite sure about the exact meaning behind this song, but I get a sense of the negativity around it. There’s a grittiness to his lyrics that paints this picture of a world around these songs. I listen to this album and I imagine a society of drifters who travel by train, drug addicts, insomniacs, etc. In fact, as I write this, I am even more impressed with the idea that Waits was able to build this sad, dirty world inside my head (assuming that was his intention). If anything, the variety of styles in this album only adds to that world by providing a diversity of voices for the listener.

                  Overall this album is fantastic. The dense instrumentation (with guitars, drums, horns, accordions, marimbas, and more) and varied genres are quite the undertaking, and Tom Waits pulls it off. At 19 songs, it does not feel overly long, with the average length probably somewhere around 2:30. The entire album runs somewhere around 51 minutes. Although I do not see myself returning to this album on a regular basis, it being as musically challenging as it is, I cannot deny that the man has extreme talent, and this album accurately depicts that. If you have been sleeping on Tom Waits, this might be the album to kick off your journey into his music.

Grade: A