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Rating: When Tom Waits released "Swordfishtrombones" in 1984, he gave a radical turn to his career: it is the masterpiece album, a natural evolution of an already extraordinary artistic journey, the culminating and seemingly unrepeatable moment of his creativity. Yet, a year later, "Rain Dogs" comes out; the album so beautiful and well-crafted that you don't believe it can exist until you've heard it, the album that, just one year after its already towering predecessor, makes you once again rethink your perspectives on this wonderful chansonnier, who had already produced many beautiful albums. And then you think: “Well, actually this masterpiece is it.”
Tom Waits is not an easy character, quite the opposite. He is one of those you either love or hate, with no middle ground, because he is so intense that he cannot leave you indifferent. He is the perfect incarnation of the cursed and restless figure, the genius who lives in a disordered manner, entirely absorbed by his art and his ideas; indeed, it’s as if Waits had turned his life into music. A life “lived on the wrong side” (as one of his songs on "Blue Valentine" is titled, "The Wrong Side Of The Road"), like Bukowsky, like Kerouac, like Miller. Tom Waits tells stories of outcasts, the marginalized, the homeless, and alcoholics: of all those excluded from the American dream. The Rain Dogs, indeed. Stylistically, the album is a mixture of genres skillfully blended by Waits and his band (we remember the great guitarist Marc Ribot, among others), who create an incredibly Waitsian sound that sounds bluesy at times, jazzy at times, rocky at times, although the formal solutions do not relate to any of these genres.
The rhythms of marches and fanfares already heard in "Swordfishtrombones" are also indispensable, and that Waits loves so much. The album opens with a formidable triple shot: “Singapore,” “Clap Hands,” “Cemetery Polka,” revealing Waits’ passion for unusual percussion, like the marimba. Then one of the best tracks on the album, “Jockey Full of Bourbon,” the track that Jim Jarmusch chose as the title-track for his film Down By Law, which magnificently synthesizes much of Waits' poetics: the lyrics talk about women, guns, trains, about someone who can’t stand because, indeed, he’s “full of bourbon.” After the wonderful screwy dance of “Tango Till They’re Sore,” the visceral blues of “Big Black Mariah,” a track about the prison van transporting inmates to jail, sticks in your head and it will take a long time before it lets go. But in this album, there’s also room for the ballads that made Waits famous, pieces you wouldn’t expect to come out of someone with a voice like a drunken werewolf, that rusty voice that has always been his most important and famous signature; slow, touching ballads like “Time,” or more rocking and in perfect American style like “Hang Down Your Head,” co-written with his wife Kathleen Brennan, the woman who managed to tame Tom the vagabond, or the slow and hypnotic “Gun Street Girl” or the engaging country rock “Downtown Train.” The title track “Rain Dogs” is the manifesto of this album: an unusual organ opening then gives way to typical Waitsian pacing, with beautiful lyrics painting nostalgic nights of excess.
It should be said that Waits’ lyrics are not always easily understandable, quite the contrary; often the Pomona singer-songwriter refers to entirely personal matters, like in the title track where Tralee, a small village in Ireland where Tom and his wife went for their honeymoon, is mentioned, or he executes collages of nursery rhymes and popular songs, as in the case of “Jockey Full Of Bourbon.” There is also room for a couple of instrumental interludes, indispensable from a certain point onwards in our artist’s career and especially in the so-called “Frank trilogy” composed of "Swordfishtrombones," "Rain Dogs," and "Frank’s Wild Years." “Walking Spanish” is a successful jazz-blues, a slice of life in prison, of a prisoner about to be executed. The album closes with a short but very intense track, “Anywhere I Lay My Head,” where Waits delivers a nostalgic song that seems sung by a rowdy drunkard shouting at the moon all the discomfort of a homeless person: “Anywhere I lay my head, that’s where I will call home.”
This is perhaps Waits’ truly perfect album, without missteps or smudges, without uncertainties. It’s one of those albums that can change lives and is difficult to describe in words.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 Singapore (02:45)
We sail tonight for Singapore,
we're all as mad as hatters here
I've fallen for a tawny Moor,
took off to the land of Nod
Drank with all the Chinamen,
walked the sewers of Paris
I danced along a colored wind,
dangled from a rope of sand
You must say goodbye to me
We sail tonight for Singapore,
don't fall asleep while you're ashore
Cross your heart and hope to die
when you hear the children cry
Let marrow bone and cleaver choose
while making feet for children shoes
Through the alley, back from hell,
when you hear that steeple bell
You must say goodbye to me
Wipe him down with gasoline
'til his arms are hard and mean
From now on boys this iron boat's your home
So heave away, boys
We sail tonight for Singapore,
take your blankets from the floor
Wash your mouth out by the door,
the whole town's made of iron ore
Every witness turns to steam,
they all become Italian dreams
Fill your pockets up with earth,
get yourself a dollar's worth
Away boys, away boys, heave away
The captain is a one-armed dwarf,
he's throwing dice along the wharf
In the land of the blind
the one-eyed man is king, so take this ring
We sail tonight for Singapore,
we're all as mad as hatters here
I've fallen for a tawny Moor,
took off to the land of Nod
Drank with all the Chinamen,
walked the sewers of Paris
I drank along a colored wind,
I dangled from a rope of sand
You must say goodbye to me
03 Cemetery Polka (01:46)
Uncle Vernon
Uncle Vernon
Independent as a
Hog on ice
He's a big shot down there
At the slaughterhouse
He plays accordion
For Mr. Weiss
Uncle Bittmore and
Uncle William
Made a
Million during
World War II
But they're tightwads
And they're
Cheap skates
And they'll never give a dime to you
Auntie Mame
Has gone
Insane
She lives in
The doorway of an old hotel
And the
Radio's playing opera and
All she ever says
Is go to Hell.
Uncle Violet
Flew as pilot
He said there
Ain't no pretty
Girls in France
Now he runs a
Tiny little
Bookie joint they say
He never
Keeps it in his pants
Uncle Bill
Will never leave a will
And the tumour is as
Big as an egg
He has a mistress
She's a Puerto Rican
And I heard she has
A wooden leg.
Uncle Phil
Can't live without his pills
He has emphysema and
He's almost blind
And we must find out
Where the money is
Get it now
Before he loses his mind
04 Jockey Full of Bourbon (02:47)
Edna Million in a drop dead suit
Dutch Pink on a downtown train
Two-dollar pistol but the gun won't shoot
I'm in the corner on the pouring rain
Sixteen men on a dead man's chest
And I've been drinking from a broken cup
Two pairs of pants and a mohair vest
I'm full of bourbon, I can't stand up
Hey little bird, fly away home
Your house is on fire, children are alone
Hey little bird, fly away home
Your house is on fire, your children are alone
Schiffer broke a bottle on Morgan's head
And I'm stepping on the devil's tail
Across the stripes of a full moon's head
And through the bars of a Cuban jail
Bloody fingers on a purple knife
Flamingo drinking from a cocktail glass
I'm on the lawn with someone else's wife
Admire the view from up on top of the mast
Hey little bird, fly away home
House is on fire, children are alone
Hey little bird, fly away home
House is on fire, your children are alone
I said hey little bird, fly away home
Your house is on fire, your children are alone
Hey little bird, fly away home
House is on fire, your children are alone
Yellow sheets on a Hong Kong bed
Stazybo horn and a Slingerland ride
"To the carnival" is what she said
A hundred dollars makes it dark inside
Edna Million in a drop dead suit
Dutch Pink on a downtown train
Two-dollar pistol but the gun won't shoot
I'm in the corner on the pouring rain
Hey little bird, fly away home
Your house is on fire, your children are alone
Hey little bird, fly away home
Your house is on fire, your children are alone
09 Time (03:56)
Well, the smart money's on Harlow
and the moon is in the street
the shadow boys are breaking all the laws
and you're east of East St. Louis
and the wind is making speeches
and the rain sounds like a round of applause
Napoleon is weeping in the Carnival saloon
his invisible fiance is in the mirror
the band is going home
it's raining hammers, it's raining nails
yes, it's true, there's nothing left for him down here
And it's Time Time Time
And it's Time Time Time
And it's Time Time Time
that you love
And it's Time Time Time
And they all pretend they're orphans
and their memory's like a train
you can see it getting smaller as it pulls away
and the things you can't remember
tell the things you can't forget that
history puts a saint in every dream
Well she said she'd stick around
until the bandages came off
but these mamas boys just didn't know when to quit
and Matilda asks the sailors are those dreams
or are those prayers
so just close your eyes, son
and this won't hurt a bit
And it's Time Time Time
And it's Time Time Time
And it's Time Time Time
that you love
And it's Time Time Time
Well, things are pretty lousy for a calendar girl
the boys just dive right off the cars
and splash into the street
and when she's on a roll she pulls a razor
from her boot and a thousand
pigeons fall around her feet
so put a candle in the window
and a kiss upon his lips
till the dish outside the window fills with rain
just like a stranger with the weeds in your heart
and pay the fiddler off till I come back again
And it's Time Time Time
And it's Time Time Time
And it's Time Time Time
that you love
And it's Time Time Time
12 9th & Hennepin (01:56)
Well it's 9th and Hennepin
And all the donuts have
Names that sound like prostitutes
And the moon's teeth marks are
On the sky like a tarp thrown over all this
And the broken umbrellas like
Dead birds and the steam
Comes out of the grill like
The whole goddamned town is ready to blow.
And the bricks are all scarred with jailhouse tattoos
And everyone is behaving like dogs.
And the horses are coming down Violin Road
And Dutch is dead on his feet
And the rooms all smell like diesel
And you take on the
Dreams of the ones who have slept here.
And I'm lost in the window
I hide on the stairway
I hang in the curtain
I sleep in your hat
And no one brings anything
Small into a bar around here.
They all started out with bad directions
And the girls behind the counter has a tattooed tear,
One for every year he's away she said, such
A crumbling beauty, but there's
Nothing wrong with her that
$100 won't fix, she has that razor sadness
That only gets worse
With the clang and the thunder of the
Southern Pacific going by
As the clock ticks out like a dripping faucet
Till you're full of rag water and bitters and blue ruin
And you spill out
Over the side to anyone who'll listen
And I've seen it
All through the yellow windows
Of the evening train.
17 Downtown Train (03:53)
Outside another yellow moon
punched a hole in the nighttime, yes
I climb through the window and down the street
shining like a new dime
the downtown trains are full with all those Brooklyn girls
they try so hard to break out of their little worlds
You wave your hand and they scatter like crows
they have nothing that will ever capture your heart
theyr'e just thorns without the rose
be careful of them in the dark
oh if I was the one
you chose to be your only one
oh baby can't you hear me now
Will I see you tonight
on a downtown train
every night is just the same
you leave me lonely now
I know your window and I know it's late
I know your stairs and your doorway
I walk down your street and past your gate
I stand by the light at the four way
you watch them as they fall
they all have heart attacks
they stay at the carnival
but they'll never win you back
Will I see you tonight
on a downtown train
every night is just the same
you leave me lonely now
Will I see you tonight on a downtown train
where every night is just the same you leave me lonely
will I see you tonight on a downtown train
all of my dreams just fall like rain
all upon a downtown train
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Other reviews
By StefanoHab
It is simply impossible not to shed a small tear listening to his voice, a cigarette lasting years, the voice of all the hobos in the world.
To be listened to, assimilated, understood, and loved: and this is said by a metalhead.
