This is also review #280, which is personally exciting, because it means I get to update my MP3 player with new music (I only do it every ten reviews). Why you ask? Because it helps to pace myself - and I like silly rules like that.
Disc 280 is...Franks Wild Years
Artist: Tom Waits
Year of Release: 1987
What’s Up With The Cover?: Tom plays the accordion, over the top of various images, including a flying martini (which I would classify as 'wild') and what I think is the dark outline of the US Capitol building (which I would classify as 'not wild'). This cover is inoffensive save for the lack of an apostrophe in the album's title, which is definitely offensive. Punctuate, Tom!
How I Came To Know It: I referenced this record way back when I reviewed my first Tom Waits' album at Disc 40. As I wrote then, my friend Casey accidentally bought two copies of this album, and gave one to Sheila and I, thinking we'd like it. He was right.
How It Stacks Up: This is one of my favourite Tom Waits records. Of the eighteen we own, I'd put this one tied for 4th with the likes of Swordfishtrombone.
Rating: 4 stars.
Another great record from his 'bizarre circus' phase of songwriting, although this is the least circusy of all those records. "Franks Wild Years" is a concept album. The story is of a man living in a sad little town called Rainville, where it almost never rains. Our hero (Frank) dreams of leaving Rainville, and takes a fanciful journey of the mind to escape the duldrums of his existence, until eventually he finds his way back to reality. Or he actually decides to leave town, and we are witness to his adventures in excess. You're never sure what is real, and what imagined.
This is exactly the type of rich, uncertain landscape Waits' style is perfectly suited for, and the record has a whimsical feel throughout. This dreamy quality is punctuated by the decision to use so many contrasting musical themes throughout, ranging from the 'bizarre circus' of accordion and organ through to more traditional folk song sounds.
In fact, two songs appear twice, each time in two totally different styles. "Straight To The Top" is introduced to us with a Rhumba beat, and later redone in a Vegas style. "Innocent When You Dream" is first recorded in what Waits calls "Barroom" - which basically means it sounds like a bunch of drunks are singing it in the bar. Later, you hear the "78" version, which has that old school scratchy production you will remember if you've ever listened to your grandparent's 78s. This is likely where the drunks in the former version first heard it - or so we can imagine.
While this shows Waits' range, and also showcases how a good song can translate into many styles, I find it a bit excessive, and I could've lived without the 78 and Vegas versions respectively.
In fact, clocking in with 17 songs, and just under an hour long, the album is slightly too long, and I wish he could've trimmed it by a couple - and those two would be the couple.
That said, those minor criticisms are about the only bad thing I have to say about this record, which is both amazing to listen to, and bravely ambitious.
Songs like "Way Down In the Hole" are timeless, and sound like gospel blues tracks that were written seventy years ago. Steve Earle did an entire re-imagining of the song on his album, "Washington Square Serenade" in 2007, which is excellent, partly due to Earle's brilliance, but in equally large measure because of the high quality tune he had to work with.
The album has much to love on a lot of different fronts. The raunchy, hedonistic "Telephone Call From Istanbul" which converts the banjo from it's usual bluegrass plucking and replaces it with some kind of cursed instrument that when played steals your soul and replaces it with liquor. The lyrics reinforce that just about anything is possible in the dark corners of a large city:
"Sprawled across the roll top desk
The monkey rode the blade of an overhead fan
They paint the donkey blue if you pay"
and later a line that says 'let's party' since Hank Williams sang "comb your hair and paint n' powder/you act proud and I'll act prouder" in "Settin' The Woods On Fire":
"Saturday's a festival, Friday's a gem
Die your hair yellow, and raise your hem."
Waits takes us straight from excess celebration to the sombre, folk-like "Cold Cold Ground", with nothing but a stripped down guitar, bass, accordion and Waits' vocals, reminding us that the world of the bizarre is not limited to the city, and that there is plenty of excess driven by the quiet despair of a rural town:
"Gimme a Winchester rifle and a whole box of shells
Blow the roof off the goat barn let it roll down the hill.
The piano is firewood, times square is a dream
I find we'll all lay down together in the cold, cold ground."
The album ends with the sombre, "Train Song" as our hero returns to sad reality - whether that means back in Rainville, or just awake is unclear.
This is a great record, and a pretty good introduction to Tom Waits. Although I think it is slightly eclipsed by a handful of his other records ("Closing Time", "Rain Dogs" and "Mule Variations") it is close behind them.
Best tracks: Hang On St. Christopher, Temptation, Way Down In The Hole, Telephone Call From Istanbul, Cold Cold Ground, Train Song
No comments:
Post a Comment