Real Gone
Posted: Tue Oct 05, 2004 8:23 pm
Today, the new Tom Waits album _Real Gone_ was released.
For starters, if you don't listen to Waits, this is not the album to start with. It's weird, cacophonous, and close to incomprehensible. I like it quite a lot, but it's *at least* as hard on a first listen as _Bone Machine_ was, or maybe _The Black Rider_.
I think it's probably better than _The Black Rider_ but not as good as _Bone Machine_ or _Mule Variations_. About as good as--maybe a little better than--_Blood Money_, but not as good as _Alice_. This is totally subject to change as I listen to it a bit more. Not even going to try to compare it to the pre-_Bone Machine_ Tom Waits.
It's got some stuff in common with _Mule Variations_: lots of strange rhythms, found noises. I think there's more hip-hop in this and a little less Delta Blues, but it's clear that Waits is still on that long road to become an old black man.
Rather than review each of the tracks, I'm going to hit the highlights. "Hoist That Rag" might be Iwo Jima viewed through the eyes of an ex-con who joined the army. I honestly don't know what it's about, but I adore it. This *might* be the creepy companion piece to "The Day After Tomorrow," about horrible things that happen in an urban theatre of combat: "The sun is up/The world is flat/Damn good address/For a rat./Smell of blood/Drone of Flies/You know what to do if/The baby cries."
"Sins of My Father" is a nice sort-of-gospel ballad, but ten and a half minutes?
"Don't Go Into That Barn": I don't know if this is a retelling of the Bluebeard story, something about slavery and the Reverse Underground Railroad (kidnapping blacks in free states and shipping them south), the logical extension of _Bone Machine's_ "Murder in the Red Barn", or pure Southern Gothic Horror, but it's wonderful. The image of the barn of the title, a hundred years (?) after the first couple verses is worth the price of the album: "...a spooky old barn/ Out there like a slave ship/ Upside down/ Wrecked beneath the waves of grain."
"How's It Gonna End?" We all know the answer to this: very badly indeed. Grim, alluded-to tales of betrayal and murder. And Missouri REPRESENT: "She wrote goodbye / In the dust on the hood / They found a map of Missouri / And lipstick on the glass / They must have left / In the middle of the night." Also, a perhaps untruthful but unforgettable line: "Life is sweet at the edge of a razor."
"Metropolitan Glide": a vaguely hiphopish, well, ballroom dance tune. If Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin were doing Gangsta Chic, it'd look like this. Remember "Tango 'Till They're Sore" from _Rain Dogs_? This is about black 00s gangsters, not 80s Latino gangsters, but same sort of thing.
"Dead and Lovely"--there must be something wrong with me, because I find this song hilarious. It's another could-have-been-Sinatra-on-acid song. It's *crooned*. Yes, by Tom Waits, it's *crooned*: "She's dead. She's so dead. Forever dead and lovely now."
"Circus" is the spoken-word piece. *I* like it better than "What's He Building?"--it's a very funny vignette about a down-at-the-heels sideshow.
"Make It Rain" is almost a field holler. Or R&B. I'm not actually quite sure what, but it's black-and-bluesy, and it's got that great Waitsian Biblical apocalyptic imagery: "The night's too quiet/Stretched out alone/I need the whip of thunder/And the wind's dark moan/I'm not able/I'm just Cain/Open up the heavens/Make it rain."
And finally, "The Day After Tomorrow." It's an anti-war song, but not a particularly political one. It's a letter from a soldier home on his 21st birthday. He doesn't know why he's out there fighting, he doesn't believe any of the reasons he's been told, and he's just trying to survive until his tour is over. "And tell me/How does God choose/whose prayers does He refuse?/Who turns the wheel,/Who rolls the dice?/On the day after tomorrow." This is way more topical--and way more straightforward--than most Waits songs. I don't know how well it will age.
Good album? Certainly. Great album? Probably not. At least, I doubt that I'm going to ever think it's _Small Change_, _Blue Valentines_, _Rain Dogs_, or _Mule Variations_. Still, even mediocre Waits is better than the best of almost anyone else, and this is better than _Foreign Affairs_, _Frank's Wild Years_, or _The Black Rider_. If you like Tom Waits, you've probably already bought this. If you don't listen to Waits, start with something a little more accessible.
Bruce
For starters, if you don't listen to Waits, this is not the album to start with. It's weird, cacophonous, and close to incomprehensible. I like it quite a lot, but it's *at least* as hard on a first listen as _Bone Machine_ was, or maybe _The Black Rider_.
I think it's probably better than _The Black Rider_ but not as good as _Bone Machine_ or _Mule Variations_. About as good as--maybe a little better than--_Blood Money_, but not as good as _Alice_. This is totally subject to change as I listen to it a bit more. Not even going to try to compare it to the pre-_Bone Machine_ Tom Waits.
It's got some stuff in common with _Mule Variations_: lots of strange rhythms, found noises. I think there's more hip-hop in this and a little less Delta Blues, but it's clear that Waits is still on that long road to become an old black man.
Rather than review each of the tracks, I'm going to hit the highlights. "Hoist That Rag" might be Iwo Jima viewed through the eyes of an ex-con who joined the army. I honestly don't know what it's about, but I adore it. This *might* be the creepy companion piece to "The Day After Tomorrow," about horrible things that happen in an urban theatre of combat: "The sun is up/The world is flat/Damn good address/For a rat./Smell of blood/Drone of Flies/You know what to do if/The baby cries."
"Sins of My Father" is a nice sort-of-gospel ballad, but ten and a half minutes?
"Don't Go Into That Barn": I don't know if this is a retelling of the Bluebeard story, something about slavery and the Reverse Underground Railroad (kidnapping blacks in free states and shipping them south), the logical extension of _Bone Machine's_ "Murder in the Red Barn", or pure Southern Gothic Horror, but it's wonderful. The image of the barn of the title, a hundred years (?) after the first couple verses is worth the price of the album: "...a spooky old barn/ Out there like a slave ship/ Upside down/ Wrecked beneath the waves of grain."
"How's It Gonna End?" We all know the answer to this: very badly indeed. Grim, alluded-to tales of betrayal and murder. And Missouri REPRESENT: "She wrote goodbye / In the dust on the hood / They found a map of Missouri / And lipstick on the glass / They must have left / In the middle of the night." Also, a perhaps untruthful but unforgettable line: "Life is sweet at the edge of a razor."
"Metropolitan Glide": a vaguely hiphopish, well, ballroom dance tune. If Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin were doing Gangsta Chic, it'd look like this. Remember "Tango 'Till They're Sore" from _Rain Dogs_? This is about black 00s gangsters, not 80s Latino gangsters, but same sort of thing.
"Dead and Lovely"--there must be something wrong with me, because I find this song hilarious. It's another could-have-been-Sinatra-on-acid song. It's *crooned*. Yes, by Tom Waits, it's *crooned*: "She's dead. She's so dead. Forever dead and lovely now."
"Circus" is the spoken-word piece. *I* like it better than "What's He Building?"--it's a very funny vignette about a down-at-the-heels sideshow.
"Make It Rain" is almost a field holler. Or R&B. I'm not actually quite sure what, but it's black-and-bluesy, and it's got that great Waitsian Biblical apocalyptic imagery: "The night's too quiet/Stretched out alone/I need the whip of thunder/And the wind's dark moan/I'm not able/I'm just Cain/Open up the heavens/Make it rain."
And finally, "The Day After Tomorrow." It's an anti-war song, but not a particularly political one. It's a letter from a soldier home on his 21st birthday. He doesn't know why he's out there fighting, he doesn't believe any of the reasons he's been told, and he's just trying to survive until his tour is over. "And tell me/How does God choose/whose prayers does He refuse?/Who turns the wheel,/Who rolls the dice?/On the day after tomorrow." This is way more topical--and way more straightforward--than most Waits songs. I don't know how well it will age.
Good album? Certainly. Great album? Probably not. At least, I doubt that I'm going to ever think it's _Small Change_, _Blue Valentines_, _Rain Dogs_, or _Mule Variations_. Still, even mediocre Waits is better than the best of almost anyone else, and this is better than _Foreign Affairs_, _Frank's Wild Years_, or _The Black Rider_. If you like Tom Waits, you've probably already bought this. If you don't listen to Waits, start with something a little more accessible.
Bruce