first of all…3 cds and 56 songs - 30 brand-new (mostly cowritten with wife and longtime partner kathleen brennan) and the rest rarities, covers or songs from past films and theatre efforts - are a lot to digest from any artist, but with the abstract and ornery tom waits you have all the makings of a post-thanksgiving-dinner stomach ache if you’re not careful.  dropping tomorrow, orphans: brawlers, bawlers and bastards is a mouthful for sure and needs to be chewed carefully before swallowing. it’s honestly almost too much at one time, even for a rabid fan such as myself, but each album encapsulates a separate aspect of a brillliant 30 year career and is raspily exquisite when listened to separately.
of the three, i would venture that brawlers is the most immediately familiar and accessible, especially to recent waits converts who jumped in around the up-tempo mule variations era. it has some rock, some blues, some gospel, even some rockabilly flavoured numbers (”lie to me”). it’s very typical tom waits, if such an adjective can ever be applied to him, full of surly one-eyed murderers in seedy jazz bars and stomping sailors drinking with regret-filled hobos and train-jumping folk tales bleeding from the veins of americana tradition. “putting on the dog” has an almost brazilian rhythm and the grinding cover of “sea of love” is exactly what a cover should be. my only (very mild) disappointment with this one was the extremely long anti-war “road to peace” - not because of any political opinion about the arab-israeli conflict or because it’s a bad song but only because waits has mentioned in past interviews how futile such political soapboxing (my term, not his) is in music.
The next cd in the set, bawlers, is my personal favourite - i have always been a sucker for those damaging and sentimental ballads of his and this is full of them. they are the kind of songs that work like a movie…delicate folk songs, broken bar-room ballads and crippled waltzes that are so lyrically powerful and poignant that they leave visual impressions behind your eyelids while they threaten to rip your heart out. there is a little poison in all of the sentiment, of course…”goodnight irene” has enough wistful grit that it could be straight from small change. “you can never hold back spring” is a surprisingly hopeful tune but overall these are the kinds of songs that leave a bruise on your psyche. he even successfully covers a ramones number (”danny says”) and it sounds so desolate that it instantly made me want to slit my wrists in the best way possible.
the final album is bastards, which will appeal to fans of waits’ more experimental work. it’s pretty much a random mix of everything that didn’t fit on any other album and it’s still a bit hard for me personally to listen to all the way through, although i am sure it will grow on me after further listens. he does a nice reading of bukowski (”nirvana”), which is a match made in a whiskey-soaked heaven. there is the obligatory kurt weill stuff, some spoken word interludes, some jokes that will tickle anyone who has seen a waits live show and some incredibly weird and disturbed horror stories and fairy tales. overall i’d say if you weren’t into bone machine, it will probably be hard for you to get into this record. but if you were…dude, this will be like drugs for you.
even if one of these albums doesn’t work right away for you, it is my bet that you will be left with no question about what a genius tom waits truly is - i’ll fight you if you say anything different. this is definitely worth getting your ears on asap - i think orphans is going to be considered a major work…earth-changing, even. i am so very glad this man was born, whether it was in a taxicab or no.
Release date: November 21, 2006
Label: Anti
Rating: 9/10
8 Comments »
i find it amusing that your bukowski quote is posted at precisely 4:20 pm, zak.
Hello,
Is this the same Joie who writes for Music Plus Magazine? I had no idea you had your own thing going. This is a great review and a really nice site. We’ll be watching to see what happens.
Thanks,
Engine Room
Your comments about ‘Road to Peace’ are interesting. I typically have a problem with overtly “political” lyrics but I like this song, not so much for what it says, but for Tom’s songwriting. It shows him actually living in the real word and relying less on the “Tom Waits” persona.
Scott
yes, i am indeed that joie, although i confess that the majority of my music-geek time now goes to good ol’ superstarcastic. it’s nice to have a loyal following - thanks for stopping by. 
I listened to this at a friend’s house this weekend and thought the middle disc (Bawlers) dragged a bit, although after reading your rapturous review of it I will have to listen again. Some really pretty writing here, by the way.
i get behind bawlers as well
From amazon.com review of the Tom Waits reader:
Only downside is that a great bit of the NPR interview is left out when Tom grumbles at Terry Gross’ suggestion that the song “God’s Away On Business” is atheistic. “No. He’s away on business. God’s a busy guy. He’ll be back.”
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Comment by exZAKtly — November 20, 2006 @ 4:20 pm
Sometimes you just have to pee in the sink.