Album: Swordfishtrombones
Artist: Tom Waits
Born: Pomona, California
Released: September 1983
Genre: Junkyard Jazz
Influenced: Nick Cave, Mark Lanegan, PJ Harvey, Elliott Smith, Beirut
Even by Tom Waits' own admission, his musical output can be divided into before & after Swordfishtrombones, a record that saw him move beyond what he calls his "barfly lounge, pseudo-jazz kind of period". In among his Asylum albums, from Closing Time (1973) to Heartattack & Vine (1980), there are so many gems -- Martha, Grapefruit Moon, Heart Of Saturday Night, Better Off Without A Wife, Tom Traubert's Blues, Jersey Girl -- but little sense of artistic progression. Waits, as ever, puts it best himself, "I'd nailed one foot to the floor and kept going in circles, making the same record." The opportunity to soundtrack a Francis Ford Coppola film, One From The Heart, would provide the unexpected catalyst for change. At Zoetrope Studios in San Francisco, he would meet script analyst Kathleen Brennan, who not only became his wife but also his muse, introducing him to an extended range of musical influences from Captain Beefheart to Harry Partch. This would kickstart a new experimental phase in Waits' music, during which he ditched orchestral strings in favour of strange instruments (metal aunglongs, glass harmonica, etc) that helped to create a nightmarish parallel world of misfits and freaks. The album's 15 songs are little vignettes that together produce a colourful picture of small town life, often on the wrong side of the tracks.
The opening bars of the album give you a sense of descending, with Waits as bandleader taking us on a march to a "world going on / underground". Shore Leave is one of several songs on the record written from a soldier or sailor's perspective, in this case a lovesick letter home from Hong Kong ("and I wondered how the same moon outside over this Chinatown fair / could look down on Illinois and find you there"). There's a real cinematic quality to Waits' poetic lyrics. Swordfishtrombone paints the picture of a soldier returning to civvy street, while Soldier's Things is a rifle through the knick-knacks of a veteran. Johnsburg, Illinois is a pretty piano ballad reminiscent of Randy Newman, about the small town where Waits' wife Kathleen grew up, while 16 Shells From A 30.6 is a dramatic shift to junkyard orchestra mode, with Waits employing his guttural howl against a backdrop of clangs, crashes and trombones. Brass instruments again feature on In The Neighborhood but the lyrics star ("well the eggs chase the bacon round the fryin' pan"). One of my favourite tracks is Frank's Wild Years, a short story with wordplay that Dylan would be proud of, and which later formed the basis for a stage musical of the same name. Gin Soaked Boy sees Waits channeling the blues, as he sings about a jealous lover ("how could you crawl so low / with some gin-soaked boy / that you don't know"). At a time when dance music was becoming all the craze, Waits forged a distinctive path for himself as dramatic chronicler of society's drunks, outsiders and freaks.
Even by Tom Waits' own admission, his musical output can be divided into before & after Swordfishtrombones, a record that saw him move beyond what he calls his "barfly lounge, pseudo-jazz kind of period". In among his Asylum albums, from Closing Time (1973) to Heartattack & Vine (1980), there are so many gems -- Martha, Grapefruit Moon, Heart Of Saturday Night, Better Off Without A Wife, Tom Traubert's Blues, Jersey Girl -- but little sense of artistic progression. Waits, as ever, puts it best himself, "I'd nailed one foot to the floor and kept going in circles, making the same record." The opportunity to soundtrack a Francis Ford Coppola film, One From The Heart, would provide the unexpected catalyst for change. At Zoetrope Studios in San Francisco, he would meet script analyst Kathleen Brennan, who not only became his wife but also his muse, introducing him to an extended range of musical influences from Captain Beefheart to Harry Partch. This would kickstart a new experimental phase in Waits' music, during which he ditched orchestral strings in favour of strange instruments (metal aunglongs, glass harmonica, etc) that helped to create a nightmarish parallel world of misfits and freaks. The album's 15 songs are little vignettes that together produce a colourful picture of small town life, often on the wrong side of the tracks.
The opening bars of the album give you a sense of descending, with Waits as bandleader taking us on a march to a "world going on / underground". Shore Leave is one of several songs on the record written from a soldier or sailor's perspective, in this case a lovesick letter home from Hong Kong ("and I wondered how the same moon outside over this Chinatown fair / could look down on Illinois and find you there"). There's a real cinematic quality to Waits' poetic lyrics. Swordfishtrombone paints the picture of a soldier returning to civvy street, while Soldier's Things is a rifle through the knick-knacks of a veteran. Johnsburg, Illinois is a pretty piano ballad reminiscent of Randy Newman, about the small town where Waits' wife Kathleen grew up, while 16 Shells From A 30.6 is a dramatic shift to junkyard orchestra mode, with Waits employing his guttural howl against a backdrop of clangs, crashes and trombones. Brass instruments again feature on In The Neighborhood but the lyrics star ("well the eggs chase the bacon round the fryin' pan"). One of my favourite tracks is Frank's Wild Years, a short story with wordplay that Dylan would be proud of, and which later formed the basis for a stage musical of the same name. Gin Soaked Boy sees Waits channeling the blues, as he sings about a jealous lover ("how could you crawl so low / with some gin-soaked boy / that you don't know"). At a time when dance music was becoming all the craze, Waits forged a distinctive path for himself as dramatic chronicler of society's drunks, outsiders and freaks.
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