Be honest. No Googling. How many of you know who Tom Waits is, beyond a vague association with music or acting? And if you know who he is at all, what kind of musician do you think he is? (These are honest questions; feel free to answer in comments, even if the answer is “I’ve never heard of him” or “You’re an idiot for never having heard of him.”)
The wife and I have been marathoning Season 2 of Orange is the New Black, and for only the second time the closing musical number of a show has gotten me to spend money on music. (The first was an episode of Defiance that closed with Civil Twilight’s amazing cover of Nirvana’s Come As You Are. The weirdest thing that’s ever led to me spending money on music was hearing Jeffrey Gaines’ cover of In Your Eyes over the in-store sound system in a Chipotle and insisting that the manager tell me what the hell they were playing.)
Anyway. Right. So the seventh or eighth episode of OitNB Season Two ends with a substantial portion of Waits’ Come On Up to the House playing. It’s an awesome freaking song, and since I was in an expansive mood (and I love new music) I downloaded the entire album it was on, on the spot. I had heard of Waits, but mostly because he was awesome in Mystery Men, one of the most underrated movies ever. I had a vague idea that he was a bluesman; Come On Up to the House is certainly bluesy.
Guys, I’ve listened to Mule Variations three goddamn times now. Tom Waits is either the greatest musician of all time or an assault on the very concept of music itself. I don’t know which.
First things first: the damn album is called Mule Variations, for fuck’s sake. Do mules vary? I don’t know. I think mules are pretty much just mules. It’s a clue, though, as to how the album is going to go; he took two words that don’t belong together and slapped them together to make a word-salad phrase that, grammatically at least, ought to make sense but doesn’t. I listened to the first half of this album on the way home from OtherJob and I honestly don’t know how the hell I made it home because I was so confused.
You’ve seen Belushi’s impression of Joe Cocker, right? Here, just in case the answer was no:
(Crap, it won’t embed right, and I can’t find it on YouTube. Click.)
Okay. Now imagine what it would be like if Joe Cocker did an impression of John Belushi doing an impression of Joe Cocker.
That’s what Tom Waits sounds like. His voice is like nothing I’ve ever heard; he sounds like he’s just growling for half of the songs and it’s rarely immediately clear what the hell he’s saying. You want to do a credible Tom Waits impression? Gargle. I’m fucking serious. And it’s probably better if you’re gargling bourbon instead of water. Although I feel like that has at least a chance of killing you so you probably shouldn’t do it. It’s as if Leonard Cohen and Junior Kimbrough beat each other to death and somebody stitched a zombie singer together with the parts that still sorta worked right, soaked it in brine, and animated it, only then the zombie got cancer of the vocal cords. I’ve never heard anything like it.
Get used to that sentence.
The production on the album is the dirtiest nastiest filthiest stuff I’ve ever heard, and I think I mean that as a compliment. There’s at least one track where the vocals and the music simply do not match at all. Like there were two different producers completely, and they weren’t allowed to talk to each other. Track 8 is called What’s He Building In There?. It’s a spoken-word track. Imagine that Pink Floyd vomited on Allan Ginsberg. Other tracks are called– I am not making this up– Eyeball Kid and Filipino Box Spring Hog, which makes absolutely no goddamned sense at all. Filipino Box Spring Hog may actually involve a DJ.
There is a track where I’m pretty sure a string breaks on someone’s guitar partway through, and they just kept going and left it in. On another, there’s a loud thump at one point, like someone in the studio dropped a heavy box. They left it in.
I have never heard anything like this.
I don’t know what the hell any of this shit is.
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From the review, I take it that you love it. lol
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I don’t know if such pedestrian concerns as “like” even enter the picture. The album’s just so damn WEIRD that I’m fascinated by it.
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“What’s He Building in There” is like a three minute episode of The Twilight Zone. I love it. Also, I LOVE Tom Waits. I own 12 of his albums, and I’m hoping to complete my collection over the next year. I’m especially fond of his early 1970s stuff, which is all really boozy, nightclub, saloon style stuff–like Sinatra if Sinatra sounded like…well, like Tom Waits. You should also check out some of the following singles, which are my favorite Tom Waits songs:
“Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis”
” I Don’t Wanna Grow Up”
“Ol’ 55”
“I Hope that I Don’t Fall in Love with You”
“I Never Talk to Strangers” (A duet with Bette Midler, of all people…)
“The Heart of Saturday Night”
“Better Off without a Wife”
“Big Joe and Phantom 309”
“Downtown Train”
“The Piano Has Been Drinking (not Me)”
…and the entire soundtrack to One from the Heart, which consists almost entirely of duets with Crystal Gayle, of all people.
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Is that actually Rod Serling doing the vocals, or just a close impression?
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LOL–nah, it’s Tom.
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I know he has done a lot of other things, but Tom Waits always makes me think of Shrek. I’m not a big fan of him – most of the songs I’ve heard of his are just not my cup of tea – but the song he does in Shrek 2 is quite catchy.
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Have a listen to the ‘Closing Time’ album. It’s a lot more straightforward. I saw him live a few years ago. It was in a circus marquee which was very fitting. Amazing showman!
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I’ll admit that when I saw “Tom Waits” the first thing I thought was “Leonard Cohen”.
Thanks for reminding me of Belushi’s Joe Cocker…oh I can’t wait to watch that again.
Here’s a nice Joe Cocker video at Woodstock, with subtitles:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xJWxPE8G2c
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I’ll admit I heard that song at the end of that episode and my husband and I (who just finished binge watching season two of OITNB last night) looked at each other like “WTF?” LOL
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I am familiar with Tom Waits. Used to watch him on different shows like “Saturday Night Live.” He’d be there playing piano, smoking and mumbling/growling into the mike. Different.
Have you listened to the new Beck album? Love it!
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Man’s a legend. Love all of his work, but those 80’s and 90’s albums are tough to beat.
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I love Tom Waits! My favorite album is Blue Valentine. Btw, this is a fantastic post. I think Tom Waits would agree.
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I remember the very first time I heard “Waltzing Matilda” in a bar in SC in 1977…it’s been love ever since. So glad you discovered Tom…his brain and creative approach to music are pure magic. Oh, and I heard that song at the end of OITNB too…love it!
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i started a tom waits station on pandora several months ago, on the understanding that i liked everything of his that i’d heard, but i hadn’t heard very much.
i still like everything of his that i’ve heard, particularly some of the old stuff.
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I can’t claim to know much about music or Tom Waits… but I’ve met a few mules. Mules can be male or female (both sterile of course), and come in different colors. But the most important thing is… mules have more sense than those beautiful horses everyone carries on about. Sometimes, a couple mules are put in with a herd of horses to offer adult supervision. But I can’t imagine how that will help with Waits’ music. 🙂
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Tom Waits is an amazing artist, his album “the island years” which is a best of from his time with Island Records is a perfect intro into Tom’s musical genius. Do yourself a real favor and get it. He also has some great interviews on NPR that are worth your time.
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I own that CD! I bought it years ago and I love it. ^_^
I bought it after I heard a Tom Waits song I liked on the soundtrack of the movie Basquiat.
I love “Chocolate Jesus”. And yes “What’s He Building in There” is rather… interesting and creepy.
My brain keeps randomly humming songs from that CD at random intervals when I hear words that remind me of some of the lyrics…
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There’s a place down the road that closed down and sold, it’s a big empty lot with a building on one side and a big shed on the other side. The guy who bought it keeps making piles of wood, the type they use to do build house framing. There’s a LOT of it there. And every time I drive past, my brain goes ‘what’s he building in there?’…
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So very late to the party, but I’m rather curious whether your introduction to Tom Waits led to persisting interest. I moved the albums Rain Dogs and Swordfishtrombones around the continent with me for years. I’d put one of them on every year or two, my ears would revolt, and I’d tuck the album back into its sleeve for the next time. For years.
Then one day, for reasons unknown, my ears opened, and I couldn’t get enough. It reminded me of something that one of the Marsalis brothers had said in Ken Burns’ Jazz — that you have to come to art, not it come to you. I think I’d finally listened to, watched, and read enough to be able to hear the underpinnings of Waits’ music, and to revel in it to the degree that it has seeped into my bones.
What has your experience been?
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