Tom Waits - Orphans [Fold-out Digipak with 24-page booklet]
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Music CD Cover
Artist: Tom WaitsBrand: WAITS,TOM
Edition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 2006-12-05
Music Label: ANTI
Soundtracks:
Music CD 1
- Lie To Me
- LowDown
- 2:19
- Fish In The Jailhouse
- Bottom Of The World
- Lucinda
- Ain't Goin' Down To The Well
- Lord I've Been Changed
- Puttin' On The Dog
- Road To Peace
- All The Time
- The Return Of Jackie and Judy
- Walk Away
- Sea Of Love
- Buzz Fledderjohn
- Rains On Me
- Bend Down The Branches
- You Can Never Hold Back Spring
- Long Way Home
- Widow's Grove
- Little Drop Of Poison
- Shiny Things
- World Keeps Turning
- Tell It To Me
- Never Let Go
- Fannin Street
- Little Man
- It's Over
- If I Have To Go
- Goodnight Irene
- The Fall Of Troy
- Take Care Of All My Children
- Down There By The Train
- Danny Says
- Jayne's Blue Wish
- Young At Heart
- What Keeps Mankind Alive
- Children's Story
- Heigh Ho
- Army Ants
- Books Of Moses
- Bone Chain
- Two Sisters
- First Kiss
- Dog Door
- Redrum
- Nirvana
- Home I'll Never Be
- Poor Little Lamb
- Altar Boy
- The Pontiac
- Spidey's Wild Ride
- King Kong
- On The Road
Free Music Notes for Orphans [Fold-out Digipak with 24-page booklet]
Free Music Review: Essential
Hit: 5 Stars
Orphans is one of the all-time great box sets and possibly Tom Waits' best release, which truly says much. It is essential for anyone even remotely interested in him and ideal for those wanting a starting point for post-Heartattack and Vine work. At three discs and 56 songs, it is a generous sampler of new and neglected work from roughly the last twenty years: soundtracks, side projects, b-sides, and outtakes. The diversity of musical genres, lyrical styles and themes, voices, and instruments is nothing short of astonishing. More than half the cuts are new. Some of the others are given as they were made at the time; others are re-recorded and improved. One might expect such an album to be widely variant in quality and lacking cohesion, but this is remarkably not so. Orphans is on par with Waits' best albums overall and on a track by track basis. I figured that I would never want to hear a significant number of the songs twice, but this is true of only about half a dozen - quite extraordinary for such an album. Some tracks ("Bottom of the World," "Lucinda," "Road to Peace," "Walk Away," "Rains on Me," "Never Let Go," "Take Care of All My Children," "Down There by the Train," etc.) are even among Waits' best. The covers are particularly intriguing, since Waits has done so few. He makes them his own in a way rarely seen, rewriting some almost entirely, and the overall quality is very high. The cohesion comes from the sequencing, which ostensibly divides Orphans into three thematic discs, all of which are essentially albums in themselves: Brawlers (rock songs), Bawlers (ballads), and Bastards (a miscellany of experiments, spoken word pieces, covers, instrumentals, and oddities). Some choices are questionable, and several could easily be moved from one disc to another, but the first two discs would be great albums in themselves, and the third is interesting as a whole while a few cuts here and there could add substantially to other albums.
Brawlers begins with "Lie to Me," a shocking departure even for Waits, who sounds like a cross between Elvis and David Bowie. Despite having all prior Waits albums and being well used to his voice diversity, I first thought it could not be him and that I must have played the wrong album. But it is him - and quite excellent too. This gives a good idea of what is in store, though the ever-changing Waits never even comes close to repeating. "LowDown" is perhaps his most overt rock song and a very fine one. Other cuts veer more toward blues ("2:19"), folk ("Ain't Goin' Down to the Well"), faux-gospel ("Lord I've Been Changed"), ballads ("Sea of Love"), and more. Especially notable is "Road to Peace," only Waits' second overtly political song, which deals with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; the singing approaches spoken word, and Waits somehow gets away with lyrics no one else would even think of using while making keen points. As all this suggests, the claim that Brawlers is his first true rock album is exaggerated, but it is the closest we have. This is nice in that we get to hear him stay uptempo more than usual but not so nice in that the writing is simpler and more repetitive than usual. Some may have wanted full-blown rock, but I for one am glad for the variety.
Bawlers is the standout, a masterpiece that would surpass everything but Bone Machine as Waits' best album. There is no weak cut and many great ones. The disc touches on nearly every kind of ballad, from lullaby ("Bend down the Branches") to Rat Pack ("You Can Never Hold Back Spring") to epic-sounding barnstormers ("Never Let Go," "Take Care of All My Children"), and more. Many songs have Waits' usual excellent piano, and all have his supremely affecting voice. "Little Drop of Poison" and "Little Man" add some dark-edged variety, and Waits' take on the classic "Goodnight Irene" also mixes things up somewhat. Another standout is "Down There by the Train," previously recorded by Johnny Cash in a very different version; we even get an extra stanza. Orphans would be well worth buying for this disc alone.
Despite a few great pieces, Bastards, as its name implies, is essentially fans only. It opens with a killer "What Keeps Mankind Alive," letting Waits pay tribute to the Kurt Weill/Bertolt Brecht team that is one of his biggest influences; the song sounds so much like him that it is hard to believe he did not write it. As for other actual songs, we get, among others, his legendary version of "Heigh Ho" and two very different takes on a Jack Kerouac poem put to music. "Altar Boy," a throwback to late 1970s Waits, is a pleasant surprise. "Two Sisters" is a funny traditional folk send-up. However, a good portion of the disc is spoken word. "First Kiss" is one of Waits' trademark spoken pieces with atmospheric music, but most of the others have no music and often nothing but voice. Anyone who has seen or heard Waits live knows that he could have been a comedian; his jokes are good and his delivery impeccable. He gets the chance to show this off in monologues ranging from bedtime story parody ("Children's Story") to a demonic recitation of insect facts ("Army Ants") to shaggy dog stories ("The Pontiac," the hidden twentieth track, etc.) These are entertaining, even hilarious, though not necessarily the kind of thing one wants to hear often. Most other tracks - ranging from brief, strange instrumentals that almost seem intended to annoy or test patience to weird experiments of various sorts - are less successful, but the disc is still very intriguing.
All told, Orphans is nothing less than one of the best albums from the last twenty years, a lasting testament to Waits' continuing artistry.
Orphans [Fold-out Digipak with 24-page booklet] Poster
The three disc set is packaged in a fold-out digipak with a beautifully designed 24-page booklet, including neverbefore-seen Waits? photographs.With these astounding 54 songs (plus two bonus tracks) Tom Waits has added a vital new work to his catalog. The title, Orphans, refers to the songs either being from a range of outside projects, various impulses, and whims, or simply not having found a place on the albums for which they were intended. While that scenario has constituted a stopgap measure for lesser artists, this set stands alongside Waits's finest work. He has shaped it into three separate discs, each one separately titled after the prevailing character of its tracks and playing with its own mood and dramatic arc. Brawlers favors raucousness and uptempo grinds and grooves, while Bawlers showcases balladry and the more overtly poetic. Bastards is a funhouse of angular characters, spiky anecdotes, shaggy dogs, and even a Kurt Weill cover. The set offers everything from the amped-up rockabilly hiccuping of "Lie to Me" to the breathtaking perfection of "Shiny Things," and from the outraged political reporting of "Road to Peace" to the closing-time lament of "Little Man." --David Greenberger
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