Disc 147 is...Nighthawks at the Diner
Artist: Tom WaitsYear of Release: 1975
What’s Up With The Cover?: Tom Waits - in the role of a 'nighthawk' is captured through the window of a diner. Hence he is a nighthawk...at the diner. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, my friends.
How I Came To Know It: Sheila and I are big fans of Tom Waits, and this is just us drilling through the catalogue.
How It Stacks Up: We have 18 Tom Waits' albums. I'm going to have to put this record...last. Sad, but true. Someone has to be last.
Rating: 2 stars.
"Nighthawks at the Diner" is the third Tom Waits album I have chronologically, but I came to it somewhere in the middle. It is very much in his early, 'lounge/storyteller' phase. That said, it is not anywhere near the level of the two earlier records, "Closing Time" and "The Heart of Saturday Night" which are two of my favourites.
This is also the period I can never categorize. I think on earlier reviews I've called it folk, even blues, and this time I went with jazz and easy listening. He is just hard to pin down.
"Nighthawks at the Diner" is also a live record, but unlike many live albums, it is not just a concert where Waits rehashes songs from previous work. It is all original material - he has just chosen to record it live in a lounge.
Knowing this certainly makes his ability that much more impressive. A lot of these songs are rambling affairs anywhere from four minutes all the way up to over eleven minutes. Waits never stumbles throughout, and the record includes all of his banter between tracks.
Banter can be annoying, but Tom Waits is a master of it, and even though I've heard all these jokes on earlier listens, I still had a few chuckles. I particularly like his little story about taking himself out for a date - describing the dinner, the conversation, taking himself home and even taking advantage of himself - or as he puts it "doing the scene/with a magazine".
This funny little bit of whimsy is followed by my favourite track on the album, "Better Off Without A Wife", a bittersweet expression of the joys of being a bachelor. As usual, Waits' lyrics feel like they were written a few decades earlier than they actually were:
"I like to sleep until the crack of noon
Midnight howlin' at the moon
Goin' out when I want to, comin' home when I please
I don't have to ask permission
If I want to go out fishin'
And I never have to ask for the keys"
Waits' gravelly voice is excellent throughout, and the musicians he's chosen are all talented on their instruments. With all that, this record just seems to drag on. As I noted above, I enjoy Waits' rambling style, but halfway through this record I had already had too much of it. There are eighteen tracks, including all the spoken bits. If I had been live at the concert, I would've felt like I got my money's worth, but in CD format it is too much blah blah blah and not enough music.
The music that is there may be competently played, but it is mostly just idle tinkling of piano keys and the occasional shot of jazz saxophone, played over a rambling story. The record is in bad need of both a producer and an editor. Even if it had these things, Waits' usual talent for making greasy spoons, and late night gin joints fascinating in their ordinariness here often just comes off feeling pedestrian.
"Nighthawks at the Diner" is an ambitious way to approach a record, but the songs don't hold up well enough to justify the approach. It is his charm alone that keeps the record floating, and not even he is fascinating enough to get the whole project beyond average.
Best tracks: Better Off Without A Wife
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