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| Track list: 1. Earth Died Screaming 2. Dirt in the Ground 3. Such a Scream 4. All Stripped Down 5. Who Are You 6. The Ocean Doesn't Want Me 7. Jesus Gonna Be Here 8. A Little Rain 9. In the Colosseum 10. Goin' Out West 11. Murder in the Red Barn 12. Black Wings 13. Whistle Down the Wind 14. I Don't Wanna Grow Up 15. Let Me Get Up on It 16. That Feel Running time: 53 minutes Released: 1992 |
Back to Waits now. Unlike Alice and Blood Money I have not listed to a lot of this at any point, only heard the tunes in a shuffle. As a result I don't have a picture of the album going in based on anything more than the title and song names - and that picture is not pretty. Nor is the cover art.
Christmas has been and gone, and I am looking forward to a few days off, at home, where I might get through a number of listens. This being the first. I have been staring at it for a week, not in a Tom Waits mood. To be honest I still am not, but whereas pre-Christmas I could put it off, now I ave no excuses. I wish I did though - this sort of intense darkness is best approached in appropriate mind. Rambling percussion, husky muttered vocal and a wailing chorus make Earth Died Screaming a difficult opening, the only musical sounds arriving at the death. Thankfully Dirt in the ground, whilst maintaining the downtrodden darkness, also keeps the melodic aspects too. A soft piano and sax combo is a very understated but pleasant form, moreso than the strained stylings Waits puts into his voice here.
The shambling piano, so soft as to disappear at times, is really atmospheric and effective. The sax gets wearing, as does the vocal, but although it is limited, the keyboard tune keeps giving enough of a softening edge to make the tune enjoyable. After a short pause to collect the first of my winter sale shopping (2 pairs of jeans, 2 Half Man Half Biscuit CDs and 2 videogames) from a courier it is on with with this show.
Such a Scream confirms that the listen is a trial today. This is, for me, not Waits at his best. I prefer his more maudlin but melodic efforts over this edgy material. I find All Stripped Down to be a title that works on 3 or four levels, but a song that offers me very little. I am grateful that it is 16 tracks in 50 minutes, not 10. The quicker turnaround makes each track less of a trial of patience. I say that as if I hate this; I do not. Its just a bit more intense and dark than I want just now. Thankfully, Waits wanders and Who Are You is a bit more coherent and musical again. The voice and the backing do not quite seem to match up, out of sync in a tiny but charming way, I rather like this one. I can only think it is no co-incidence that Kathleen Brennan is credited as a co-writer on this and Dirt in the Ground, but not the other three I have enjoyed less.
Ah, now this... while creepy is also kinda cool. The Ocean Doesn't Want Me is another What's He Building in There? Odd sounds in the background, percussion leading the ear whilst Tom delivers his message in that ever-distinctive gravelly voice, spoken rather than sung. This is far more effective at building a 'nicely' odd and nasty atmosphere than the broken percussive sounds on earlier tracks and whilst creepier, less arduous to listen to at the same time. This sort of sound is very uniquely Waits, and in the right mood it is glorious; in a post-family come down state as I am today it is wide of the mark. Unlike Alice, or even Blood Money, Bone Machine is failing to have the magic that can make me be in the right mood after the start. I don't think this album quite has the same lightning in a bottle feel to it. From Little Rain we hit another run of co-penned tracks, the first of which does remind me a little of Alice, which I appreciate. This run is not a step away from the percussion and bare-bones structure setup of the album though. In the Colosseum suffers from over-repetition of the title in the lyrics of the chorus and I find it overstays its welcome too - stretching out to almost 5 minutes in total. The length (hardly the longest of tunes ever) is felt because of the reliance on thumps and bangs more than anything else.
Ah, Goin' Out West has a bit more of a groove to it, strong enough that the opening line was almost inaudible actually, and it strikes me as unusual for Waits' voice to be subservient to the music in the way it is here. It still has all the same characteristics, but the recording levels are such that the bassy twang that structures the tune is definitely sharing the stage with the drums, pushing the vocal to the fringes. It creates a really interesting tune - Waits almost his own backing vocalist here, and the space within the piece feels back to front in an attractive way. I like it. The theory that co-writing tempered the more out-there tendencies may still hold, but that it suggested more melody is simply wishful thinking. There is still very little of that here. There are gems here all the same though. I love the opening of Black Wings, with a tempered edge to Waits' vocal - a film montage voice-over quality to it, which suits the music perfectly. I could swear that I've seen this movie... There is a subdued nature to this piece, but a definite quality - for me it is the pick of the album thus far by a mile - so evocative with so little.
Hah, just to put the nail in the coffin of my early-claimed revelation, Whistle Down the Wind is precisely the maudlin songster Waits that I love, in terms of tone at least, and the song is penned on his tod. Disheveled, tumbledown, haggard - the piano in Waits finest moments brings these words to mind. Playing and producing glorious melodies despite its condition, filling spaces and halls that crumble and fester in worlds that are not nice places to be. Rays of light in the darkness of a hopeless world, and all the more magic for it. Maybe I am growing into the right frame of mind for this album just as it is coming to a close, but the second half is far more engaging than the first was. More likely, I think, the songs are more accessible - a bit less percussion, a bit more melody, a bit more to latch on to. The first half was genuinely a bit of a chore, and a couple of the tracks really dragged but it ends strongly in terms of the atmosphere and emotion it produces so I am willing to let it off the hook.
Christmas has been and gone, and I am looking forward to a few days off, at home, where I might get through a number of listens. This being the first. I have been staring at it for a week, not in a Tom Waits mood. To be honest I still am not, but whereas pre-Christmas I could put it off, now I ave no excuses. I wish I did though - this sort of intense darkness is best approached in appropriate mind. Rambling percussion, husky muttered vocal and a wailing chorus make Earth Died Screaming a difficult opening, the only musical sounds arriving at the death. Thankfully Dirt in the ground, whilst maintaining the downtrodden darkness, also keeps the melodic aspects too. A soft piano and sax combo is a very understated but pleasant form, moreso than the strained stylings Waits puts into his voice here.
The shambling piano, so soft as to disappear at times, is really atmospheric and effective. The sax gets wearing, as does the vocal, but although it is limited, the keyboard tune keeps giving enough of a softening edge to make the tune enjoyable. After a short pause to collect the first of my winter sale shopping (2 pairs of jeans, 2 Half Man Half Biscuit CDs and 2 videogames) from a courier it is on with with this show.
Such a Scream confirms that the listen is a trial today. This is, for me, not Waits at his best. I prefer his more maudlin but melodic efforts over this edgy material. I find All Stripped Down to be a title that works on 3 or four levels, but a song that offers me very little. I am grateful that it is 16 tracks in 50 minutes, not 10. The quicker turnaround makes each track less of a trial of patience. I say that as if I hate this; I do not. Its just a bit more intense and dark than I want just now. Thankfully, Waits wanders and Who Are You is a bit more coherent and musical again. The voice and the backing do not quite seem to match up, out of sync in a tiny but charming way, I rather like this one. I can only think it is no co-incidence that Kathleen Brennan is credited as a co-writer on this and Dirt in the Ground, but not the other three I have enjoyed less.
Ah, now this... while creepy is also kinda cool. The Ocean Doesn't Want Me is another What's He Building in There? Odd sounds in the background, percussion leading the ear whilst Tom delivers his message in that ever-distinctive gravelly voice, spoken rather than sung. This is far more effective at building a 'nicely' odd and nasty atmosphere than the broken percussive sounds on earlier tracks and whilst creepier, less arduous to listen to at the same time. This sort of sound is very uniquely Waits, and in the right mood it is glorious; in a post-family come down state as I am today it is wide of the mark. Unlike Alice, or even Blood Money, Bone Machine is failing to have the magic that can make me be in the right mood after the start. I don't think this album quite has the same lightning in a bottle feel to it. From Little Rain we hit another run of co-penned tracks, the first of which does remind me a little of Alice, which I appreciate. This run is not a step away from the percussion and bare-bones structure setup of the album though. In the Colosseum suffers from over-repetition of the title in the lyrics of the chorus and I find it overstays its welcome too - stretching out to almost 5 minutes in total. The length (hardly the longest of tunes ever) is felt because of the reliance on thumps and bangs more than anything else.
Ah, Goin' Out West has a bit more of a groove to it, strong enough that the opening line was almost inaudible actually, and it strikes me as unusual for Waits' voice to be subservient to the music in the way it is here. It still has all the same characteristics, but the recording levels are such that the bassy twang that structures the tune is definitely sharing the stage with the drums, pushing the vocal to the fringes. It creates a really interesting tune - Waits almost his own backing vocalist here, and the space within the piece feels back to front in an attractive way. I like it. The theory that co-writing tempered the more out-there tendencies may still hold, but that it suggested more melody is simply wishful thinking. There is still very little of that here. There are gems here all the same though. I love the opening of Black Wings, with a tempered edge to Waits' vocal - a film montage voice-over quality to it, which suits the music perfectly. I could swear that I've seen this movie... There is a subdued nature to this piece, but a definite quality - for me it is the pick of the album thus far by a mile - so evocative with so little.
Hah, just to put the nail in the coffin of my early-claimed revelation, Whistle Down the Wind is precisely the maudlin songster Waits that I love, in terms of tone at least, and the song is penned on his tod. Disheveled, tumbledown, haggard - the piano in Waits finest moments brings these words to mind. Playing and producing glorious melodies despite its condition, filling spaces and halls that crumble and fester in worlds that are not nice places to be. Rays of light in the darkness of a hopeless world, and all the more magic for it. Maybe I am growing into the right frame of mind for this album just as it is coming to a close, but the second half is far more engaging than the first was. More likely, I think, the songs are more accessible - a bit less percussion, a bit more melody, a bit more to latch on to. The first half was genuinely a bit of a chore, and a couple of the tracks really dragged but it ends strongly in terms of the atmosphere and emotion it produces so I am willing to let it off the hook.
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