Discovering Tom Waits

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

Now this one looks interesting. This is a Gavin Bryars project, featuring an opera singer (Jessica Walker) and a "circus band," doing a bunch of Waits and Waits/Brennan songs. There's even some Kurt Weill and Bryars himself thrown in.

http://www.amazon.com/Mercy-And-Grand-Kathleen-Brennan/dp/B007U3Q8JC/ref=pd_rhf_gw_p_img_2

I listened to the samples. At first I thought the operatic voice was totally unidiomatic, but the more I listened, the more I liked it.

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

This one looks like a real curiosity.

Wolfgang Ambros is an Austrian pop singer. Here, he sings a whole album of Tom Waits songs, but they are 1) translated not just into German but specifically into Viennese dialect, and 2) apparently "localized" in terms of content. Thus for instance instead of "Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis" we get "Christmas Greetings from a Hooker in Floridsdorf" (a district of Vienna).

Check it out here:
http://www.amazon.de/Ambros-Singt-Waits-Nach-Mir-Sintflut/dp/B00004Z0E7

Apparently, he's done a Bob Dylan album too!

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

Now this one looks interesting. This is a Gavin Bryars project, featuring an opera singer (Jessica Walker) and a "circus band," doing a bunch of Waits and Waits/Brennan songs. There's even some Kurt Weill and Bryars himself thrown in.

http://www.amazon.com/Mercy-And-Grand-Kathleen-Brennan/dp/B007U3Q8JC/ref=pd_rhf_gw_p_img_2

I listened to the samples. At first I thought the operatic voice was totally unidiomatic, but the more I listened, the more I liked it.

Curiosity got the best of me, so I gave in and acquired this disc. And I'm glad I did: it's fascinating. Not everything works, but enough does to keep it consistently interesting. It helps that several of the songs are among my favorites.

This album is reflective of a trend. Some of Waits' songs have become popular among opera and lieder singers (to cite a couple of examples, Anne-Sofie von Otter and Nathan Gunn have recorded a few). This record however may be the most extensive example of this, with the singer, Jess Walker, doing 13 of the songs, plus the Weill material and a couple of folk songs thrown in.

As a whole, the album can be deemed an example of successful crossover. That doesn't happen too often, does it? Here's a review:

http://audaud.com/2012/10/mercy-and-grand-the-music-of-tom-waits-and-kathleen-brennan-gb-record/

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

but I can't listen to songs like "Who are you" or "A little rain", without starting to tear up. (Those songs and types of Waits ballads get to me so strongly on a personal level, like Mahler's 9th, Messiaen's Eclairs, Enya's Watermark, Devin Townsend's Deadhead etc.)

Thanks for bringing this up again, Alien. "A Little Rain" is a particularly fascinating song, because depending on how you interpret it, it's either very sinister and bleak, or cheerful and relaxed. Almost pointillist in character.

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

That kind of message, with it's element of open-endedness makes me reflect on my own life, time, mortality and regret, which is quite powerful for me. Well not in a happy hind of powerful but I think you understand 

As long as we're "tearing up," here's my choice of saddest / most poignant Waits songs:

"Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis": One of the most eloquent statements of life at the bottom. Comparable to Raymond Carver at his most quietly devastating.

"Whistle Down the Wind": This song is an illustration of Thoreau's dictum that "the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation."

"Soldier's Things": A tribute to those we use to fight our wars, and then throw away.

"Tom Traubert's Blues": It's sad, but it's also surreal, cryptic and multi-layered - a song that keeps you guessing as to its meaning, even while the anguish comes through loud and clear.

"Martha": The passage of time (I love the melodic hints of "Old Man River"), and regret over the chances we've lost.

"Kentucky Avenue": Nostalgia sure can be devastating.

"Train Song": This is what it sounds like when you just give up.

"Lullaby": Let's tell the kids some brutal truths about life.

[SimonNZ]

My vote for "tearing up" Tom Waits song: "Cold, Cold Ground"

I mentioned the wonderful and wacky Big Time concert film on another thread, which is one of my favorite TW releases, and has a lovely version of that song (and a playlist taken from Swordfishtrombones/Rain Dogs/Franks Wild Years in performances that often better the already remarkable originals):

https://www.youtube.com/v/0Ow45kTJqhg

as well as classic moments such as this:

https://www.youtube.com/v/cApn8Ff2CwY

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

My vote for "tearing up" Tom Waits song: "Cold, Cold Ground"

Yeah, that's another good one. A couple more I wanted to mention:

"Blue Valentines": It's not really a weeper, but it's a fascinatingly creepy song. Supposedly about recovering from a romantic breakup, the lyrics suggest a much deeper level of trauma or crime, without explicitly stating anything.

"Poor Edward": Again, more of a creeper than a weeper. Based on the (probably legendary) case of Edward Mordake, the man with two faces (literally!).

Which leads to - what are your favorite nutty / crazy / off-the-wall Waits songs? I like in particular:

"Underground": This reminds me of the time I had to share a train compartment with a man who was obsessed with UFOs and just wouldn't shut up on the subject. Except in the song, the narrator is obsessed with telling us how "there's a world going on underground!"

"Cemetery Polka": In the way it veers between sense and nonsense, it reminds me of Louis MacNeice's poem "Bagpipe Music."

"What's He Building": OK, a spoken-word piece rather than a song, but a brilliant evocation of post-9/11 paranoia (even though it came out a couple years before that happened).

[TheGSMoeller]

Some of Waits oldies, The Heart of Saturday Night, Martha, and I Hope That I Don't Fall In Love In Love With You always get me 

Some more that tug at the strings... The Briar and The Rose, Lost in the Harbour, A Little Rain, Dirt in the Ground,

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

Here are two amazing Waits resources I just discovered.

"Song by Song" is an ongoing podcast by a couple (sometimes trio) of Waits enthusiasts. They are analyzing, podcast by podcast, every single song in his output. As of now they are about halfway through Rain Dogs, at "Time" (song No. 115 in the series), which puts them about halfway through Waits' recorded oeuvre as a whole:

http://www.songbysongpodcast.com/

"The Tom Waits Map" was put together by a Swedish fan. It pinpoints every single geographical location mentioned in a Waits song, and links to the relevant song lyric:

http://tomwaitsmap.com/

Ah, the power of obsession!

[TheGSMoeller]

Here are two amazing Waits resources I just discovered.

"Song by Song" is an ongoing podcast by a couple (sometimes trio) of Waits enthusiasts. They are analyzing, podcast by podcast, every single song in his output. As of now they are about halfway through Rain Dogs, at "Time" (song No. 115 in the series), which puts them about halfway through Waits' recorded oeuvre as a whole:

http://www.songbysongpodcast.com/

"The Tom Waits Map" was put together by a Swedish fan. It pinpoints every single geographical location mentioned in a Waits song, and links to the relevant song lyric:

http://tomwaitsmap.com/

Ah, the power of obsession!

I now know what my weekend plans include. Thanks for the post!

[Overtones]

Tom Waits is one of the best musicians of the last few millennia, everyone included.

[TheGSMoeller]

https://www.youtube.com/v/50GvkAO0OIg


"When and if fascism comes to America it will not be labeled "made in Germany"; it will not be marked with a swastika; it will not even be called fascism; it will be called, of course, 'Americanism'.
~ Halford E. Luccock, in "Keeping Life Out of Confusion" (11 September 1938)