I did - thanks:)

that's a REALLY good impersonator

I can't Wait to Get off Work is fine. I think that's my biggest issue. Most of this album is fine. Nothing on here is bad, but it all feels pretty samey, and the first song (for me) dwarfs everything else to the point that it almost feels irrelevant.


I think i'd just put these behind the first two albums, but they're all pretty much tied.


1. Closing Time
2. Heart of Saturday Night
3. Small Change
4. Nighthawks

Yeah, no wonder he was peeved. It's a horrible jingle too

I listened to Nighhawks yesterday, because it is one of the albums I don't really remember. I feel like I may have only listened to it once before, many years ago. KD's old description of it as tedious is spot on. There are 400 Tom Waits concert bootlegs I would rather listen to than this. It's a cute experiment, but it didn't really come off.

Small Change is my favorite Waits 70's album, and one of my favorite albums of his overall (and absolutely, I really love "Jitterbug Boy"). I don't really relate to the "all the songs sound the same" criticism -- "Tom Traubert's Blues" and "Jitterbug Boy" may feel like mirror images of each other, in the sense that they're both slow piano ballads sung from the points-of-view of down-and-out losers, but I feel like they each have their own musical DNA, unique melodies/phrasings/cadences, etc. Personally, I really enjoy albums that provide immersive experiences in a single sonic language, where the differences from song to song are all in the writing and performance. I listen to a lot of albums like that -- rarely do albums strike me as repetitive just because all the songs use the same ingredients.**

That said, I wouldn't mind there being one fewer beatnik-y track on here -- I'd probably ax "Pasties and a G-String," as I feel like it has less to distinguish it than the other three. But even as is, I love the album, and revisit it as often as I do any of his others.

**I realize I kind of criticized Nighthawks for being exactly this, so I guess that would be an exception, just because my patience for the spoken word stuff/interludes is pretty thin to begin with, and I have a harder time hearing those compositional variances that I hear in Small Change and Foreign Affairs (which I like almost as well).

I do love the drums on "Pasties" though

Pasties makes me laugh

Small Change is my favorite of the first three records

I think part of my issue is that this is a genre I'm generally just not that interested in, which is why so many of the early records (this doesn't change for me until Blue Valentines) come down to identifying the best of the lot and leaving the rest.

If I could make a greatest hits album of Tom Waits pre-swordfish trombones it would be one of my favorite albums by anyone, but there are huge swaths of the early catalog I'm just not interested in.


And Foreign Affairs is a step backwards for me.

Excluding Nighthawks, though, I can easily see why any of those first 4 records would be someone's favorite.

I think Small Change marks the complete transformation into the growly voice that defined much of his career, doesn't it? The growl was there in Nighthawks but this is where he first took it into caricature territory

I won't lie, there are a number of songs here I just straight-up don't care for. Part of why I like Foreign Affairs more is that it's much more concise and just holds together better.

I rate both Small Change and Foreign Affairs very highly; my preference for Small Change probably just comes down to my personal connection to it. But they're two peas in a pod to me.

A lot of people in here talking about feelings. Music is supposed to be consumed disconnected from emotion. Tell me about the timbre

The timbre is good

mmm mmm that sweet sweet timbre

Thats me for sure. I love this stage of his career.

busy day yesterday - getting to Foreign Affairs now.

Cinny's Waltz: This is a pretty little instrumental, and a nice gentle way to ease into the album. For some reason (well, I think I know the reasons) these small moments are slightly more impactful since Tom's voice and theatrical performances can overpower the music and craft in the writing - they are vehicles for his schtick rather than compositions in their own right.

Muriel: I like how he drops back down into his unaffected voice at the end of this one. It's a nice reminder that he is a good singer when he wants to be. I think he proves this over and over and over again in his later career, but we are still in the stretch of albums where his performance is focused on being performative.

I Never Talk to Strangers: I've always been tickled by Bette Midler's guest spot on this song, although I don't particularly like the performance (what was written for her - she sings it find). It's an idea that works better than the execution. He makes the talk/singing cadence work better than she does (which he should - he's been living in it for 3 records now)

Jack and Neal: Never quite noticed (or maybe forgot) how much moments of this have the same vocal melody as Romeo is Bleeding. This is okay. For someone who really focuses in on lyrics (and thinks Tom Waits is a great writer) I have a lot of trouble zeroing in on anything on this album (Small Change to a lesser extent). Not too many amazing turns of phrase and the songs are so busy there's not a ton of time for anything to linger or breathe. L

A Sight for Sore Eyes: This is a quietly charming song - I don't want to call this restrained, but it's comparatively underwritten in a way that creates a real character and scene and details that really place you in the moment. It's believable in a way that many of the songs on the Nighthawks through Blue Valentines often aren't. The baseball toast in particular.

Potter's Field: It's just a little too much

Burma Shave: I probably enjoy this just a bit more following Potter's Field. Makes everything feel a bit more personal.

Barber Shop: This is kind of fun. Catchy bass.

Foreign Affairs: This is more clever than good, which I think probably describes most of these songs.

On the one hand I may have liked Foreign Affairs a bit more than I remembered. On the other hand, there aren't really any songs here I ever need to hear, or hear again. I'm just tired of this period. 3 albums and only one song I love - a few more I like if I happen to listen and focus, but that's it. Overall the storytelling is overwritten and trying way too hard to be clever - the effortless command over little details that he is so good at is only intermittently present. And for the most part he is singing about characters rather than really inhabiting them, which means they are all missing the humanity that animates so much of his music and makes too much of this feel a bit inauthentic to me. There is something extremely calculated about these songs that is not to their credit.

Glad this stretch is over. Everything on out (with the exception of Night on Earth, which I've listened to maybe once or twice in my life and remember nothing about), even at its low points, has amazing moments.

Rankings

1. Closing Time
2. Heart of Saturday Night
3. Small Change
4. Foreign Affairs
5. Nighthawks

I'll see you in 7 years when we do this again, Foreign Affairs