Tom Waits - Swordfishtrombones
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Free Music Notes for Swordfishtrombones
Free Music Review: Seminal
Hit: 5 Stars
In terms of American music, Swordfishtrombones is probably the most important and original album made in the last 30 years.Free Music Review: Five stars...
Hit: 5 Stars
For this album. (Small Change and Raindogs are just as good) These aren't good songs, they're great stories.Free Music Review: Sad... and Wonderful!
Hit: 5 Stars
The world is a sad, sad piece of dirt. I like the CD, although track 3 is too jarring even for me.Free Music Review: super duper album
Hit: 5 Stars
Right up there with rain dogs. Great album with all great tunes . Dave the butcher is awesome!Free Music Review: Let the 80's begin, TOM WAITS style. A lovely album that surprises throughout.
Hit: 4 Stars
It's definitely the 70's, the 80's, the 90's and the 2000's with Tom. Well, One From the Heart soundtrack was 1981 but musically belongs with his 70's work. This album is the start of his distincly new 80's sound which did not correspond to radio 80's music. Tom began to use an organ and have a more jangly sound with more exotic noises. It was like he left the seedy downtown district and took a musical journey to New Orleans. For me, the 90's period is way too dark and stark, Black Rider, Alice and even Mule Variations.
I gotta admit, it took me a coupla years to fully appreciate his shift. At first I missed that smokey lounge sound. But some of these songs, and many from his other 80's work: Rain Dogs, Franks Wild Years and Big Time were more quality numbers from a skilled, word wise, emotional artist.
Here's songs that really stand out for me on this album: Shore Leave really tells a tale. You go with him on shore leave and feel his separation and one of his most memorable lines, "Look up and see that same moon that shines on you in Illinois".
16 Shells From A Thirty-Ought Six is pretty catchy, sort of the equivilent of a beat song that finds its groove and takes you along whether you signed up or not.
In The Neighborhood is a real hit that likely has virtually never been played on the radio. It's a natural take on the neighborhood, the highs and the lows. Delightful song. Very catchy, sweet.
Down, Down, Down is another song that just finds its groove and goes.
Soldier's Things is one of his most moving songs. A veteran selling his medals, "for a dollar in this box". Few songs can take you to this emotional place.
The rest of the songs are all respectable. I don't fast forward through any of them. Those 'hits' really stand out for me. Interestingly, for me at least, as the decades have passed having been into him since 1974, I now prefer the 80's material only because the textures are more complex than his 70's work. As the years pass I tend to continue to enjoy music that isn't predictable. I know where every 70's song is going. But his 80's work twists and turns and makes noises where I don't expect it to and that, sometimes, I don't even know what it is. Nice. chrisbct@hotmail.com