# Tom Waits



## kirolak (May 8, 2017)

The only non-classical performer-composer I listen to, is Tom Waits; specifically his Swordfsh Trombones, No Visitors after Midnight & Bone Machine. Unless you count Leo Brouwer as a non-classical composer?


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## Xaltotun (Sep 3, 2010)

I have "Rain Dogs", it's a wild and maddening ride through American music and landscape. Top stuff. Oh, now it starts playing in my head...

WE SAIL TONIGHT FOR SINGAPORE / WE'RE ALL AS MAD AS HATTERS HERE / I'VE FALLEN FOR A TAWNY MOOR / TOOK OFF FROM THE LAND OF NOD / DRANK WITH ALL THE CHINAMEN / STALKED THE SEWERS OF PARIS / YOU MUST SAY GOODBYE TO ME!


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## Agamemnon (May 1, 2017)

Tom Waits saved the horrible 80's for me. I hate all music from the 80's: it all sounds so terribly sterile and sexless (perhaps because feminists forbade all macho music and/or because the transparancy of the CD-sound caused producers to eliminate all the raw edges of rock music). Only Tom Waits made old fashioned raw macho music and, inspired by Captain Beefheart and others, with Swordfishtrombones he found a new wonderful eclectic sound and has made one of the most astonishing albums in rock history.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Not for me, I don't like his voice. I kind of liked Blood Money, but it wasn't a love affair after all. But I've exposed myself to much Waits music, it's incredible how much his voice changed after Heart of Saturday Night.


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## AfterHours (Mar 27, 2017)

Love Tom Waits. One of the great vocalists and songwriters of Rock history. Swordfishtrombones and Rain Dogs are his best works, but he has numerous excellent albums.


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## Guest (May 10, 2017)

My favorite albums of his are "Small Change" and "Foreign Affairs" but I think I have all of them. The album he made with Crystal Gayle was actually outstanding! He's a genius, no doubt about it. I do sing like him the way he sounded on his debut album--"Closin' Time." You almost can't tell the difference. I can do the really guttural voice too but I don't in public simply because it sounds too much like him and everyone familiar with Waits' material knows you're copying. I saw him live I think right after "Blue Valentine" was released. I was hoping Jim Hughart would be on bass but it was Greg Cohen but still a great, great show. One of the great performers.


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

I echo all the previous sentiments apart from the Captain's. But hey, who's to say he's wrong!


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## Guest (May 10, 2017)

I used to do this one at open mics and such. Everybody would tell me how great it sounded but after listening to myself on a recording, I hated it and stopped performing it. Haven't done it in years.


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## Guest (May 10, 2017)

Tom Waits from a Smothers Brothers special. I watched it the night it aired. I have never found a studio version of this song on any of his albums. It's a live performance but there appears to be an invisible bassist. A source told me it was Dickey Smothers standing out of the camera angles.


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## Casebearer (Jan 19, 2016)

I love the way he flexibly moves from singing to Sprechgesang/Sprechstimme and back again.


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## Totenfeier (Mar 11, 2016)

I'm crazy about Tom as well, and heartily agree with everything said so far. I'm also right partial to _Mule Variations_, and after "Hell Broke Luce," there's really no need anymore to write war protest songs; Tom's got it covered. Oh, and for a long time, my one and only desert island album would have been _Nighthawks at the Diner_.


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## Kieran (Aug 24, 2010)

I love that record, Alice. It's the right mix of mood and gorgeous for me. There's less innovation maybe, but the quality throughout it perfect. Fish and Bird being a particular favourite, or Dreamland. Tom Waits being maudlin sounds stagey but it's hard to resist it when it works:


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Barbebleu said:


> I echo all the previous sentiments apart from the Captain's. But hey, who's to say he's wrong!


Thanks! Music is opinion, and I'm just sharing mine. I find early Waits more moving and "real", but it sits on the rock side of things moreso than the sophisticated side of music for my ears and I prefer sophistication.

I find later Waits to be more of a gimmick than something beautiful.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Captainnumber36 said:


> Thanks! Music is opinion, and I'm just sharing mine. I find early Waits more moving and "real", but it sits on the rock side of things moreso than the sophisticated side of music for my ears and I prefer sophistication.
> 
> I find later Waits to be more of a gimmick than something beautiful.


I think I know what you're after Cap'n. Lyrical and poetry in music. You won't find that in a lot of modern classical or popular music. It is a different philosophy.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Phil loves classical said:


> I think I know what you're after Cap'n. Lyrical and poetry in music. You won't find that in a lot of modern classical or popular music. It is a different philosophy.


I think you are close, I'm searching for a certain amount of sophistication and "purity". Something honest, intriguing, and sophisticated.

I enjoy Atonal music FWIW.


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## nikola (Sep 7, 2012)

I like him, but he's not for everybody and not for everday listening. 

Top albums:
1. Rain Dogs *****
2. Real Gone *****
3. Franks Wild Years ****
4. The Heart of Saturday Night ****
5. Swordfishtrombones ****
6. Closing Time ****
7. Bad as Me ****


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## Totenfeier (Mar 11, 2016)

Tom is certainly not every "day" listening - you have to listen to him at _night_ (any time between midnight and 2 is ideal)!


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## nikola (Sep 7, 2012)

Totenfeier said:


> Tom is certainly not every "day" listening - you have to listen to him at _night_ (any time between midnight and 2 is ideal)!


And to scare neighbours with him.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

kirolak said:


> The only non-classical performer-composer I listen to, is Tom Waits....


Tom Waits featured on this recording of Bryars' _Jesus' blood never failed me yet_.

View attachment 94514


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## Kjetil Heggelund (Jan 4, 2016)

Some say he once killed a man with a guitarstring...


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## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

Captainnumber36 said:


> Not for me, I don't like his voice. I kind of liked Blood Money, but it wasn't a love affair after all. But I've exposed myself to much Waits music, it's incredible how much his voice changed after Heart of Saturday Night.


Try "Temptation" - Holly Cole's album of covers.


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## Xaltotun (Sep 3, 2010)

My cousin once told me that whenever he'd come home after a night of drinking, he'd put on _Frank's Wild Years._


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## Totenfeier (Mar 11, 2016)

Xaltotun said:


> My cousin once told me that whenever he'd come home after a night of drinking, he'd put on _Frank's Wild Years._


Put it on to _begin_ a night of drinking, and see what happens...:devil:


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

"Tom Traubert's Blues", the first track on _Small Change_, tells me Tom Waits is a master at his craft. The rest of his music is icing on the gravy, or gravy on the icing ... or something like that. Great stuff!

I'm proud to own a dozen of his albums, and I marvel every time I play one. Always fresh, always interesting, always ... worth waiting for.


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