„Soaked in a vat
of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then
taken outside and run over with a car.” This is how Daniel
Durchholz described Tom Waits' voice. A mixture of junkyard love
songs and a more melodic rendition Stomp, love him or leave him, Tom
Waits leaves an impression. His sixteenth studio album Bad As Me,
released in 2011, is one of the many steps the grand old man of
sandpaper voice and velvety melody has taken in order to be inducted
into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (which also happened in 2011). I
severely doubt, however, that that is his purpose in the music
business.
Tom
Waits is an enigma to me, a force to be reckoned with. A
circus troubadour, a lone piano player in a smoky and seedy bar at
4am on a Sunday night, a colourful character. It is difficult to say,
or recall, when I fell for that junkyard cabaret, but it must have
been during the more impressionable years, because through thick and
thin, I've stuck with the man. Be it the soundtrack of an animated
film, his film roles or his music, Waits creates an edge to himself
that appeals to me immensely. I
would say the key factor here being his way with words, not of an
overly sententious manner, but more like a juggling of characters,
phrases, and moods. This,
however, does not mean that I turn a blind eye to his shortcomings,
far from it.
Bad As Me was
a pleasant surprise back in 2011, much like Bowie's The
Next Day last year. The thing
with these semi-active old heroes is that you don't want to expect
too much from
them, even though you can't wait for the news that yes! A new album!
And after listening to it for
a few years, both upsides and downsides emerge.
Waits'
earlier albums tend to create a weaving narrative or a wholesome
story around themselves, as does Bad As Me, in
an odd and maybe not quite as transparent way. To me, the 13-track
(what an excitingly sinister number!) album is based on a yearly
interval, starting with the energised cacophony
of Chicago and
crescendoing into the serenely calm and tired New Year's
Eve. A year is over, an album
done and over with, let us rest now. Or rather, should you not want
to see it as a year in the life of a slightly mad and very mysterious
man, look at is as though at a car chase or an intense stand-off in
an action film.
After
all, the first bars of Chicago install
a sense of paranoia in the audience. Chicago, Chicago, it's safer in
Chicago! The calmer Raised Right Men and
Talking At The Same Time
set the scene, the background for the ongoing chase. And then, as
properly balanced albums would have it, another fast-paced and
energised track, Get Lost, followed
by ballad by ballad by junkyard rock and so on. In
Bad As Me,
it seems as though Waits is physically drawing his breath inbetween
the chaos by slurring (quite beautifully, still) out similar ballads
that, in Closing
Time (1973)
–
his first album – broke plenty of hearts. However well narrated,
the new album falls victim to the most common of my problems while
listening to full albums. It does not stun as a whole and once again
I find the odd song that I listen to on repeat dozens of times, but
had you asked me about the album before I researched it for this
piece of writing, I could not have said much. So, if you're looking
for a soundtrack for sulking or as a contrast, a secret rave in your
small bedroom, this is album is not for that. Moods change here after
every track and usually move from one end of the spectrum to the
other.
There
are, of course, absolute favourites:
Bad
As Me. The
title song of the album and refreshingly, it emerges from the
menagerie of sound more than halfway through the album. Not quite as
outstanding as some of Waits' famous title tracks, but a good one for
this album. And catchy with the right kind of lyrics. It is raw and
rattling and probably described as a bout of nonsensical brilliance.
Face To The
Highway. One of the more calm
and ballad-like tracks on the album. I feel that in tracks like
these, the often well hid tiredness of Waits rears its head slightly.
Then again with Waits, there are always characters and faces and
masks in the songs, and the stories told are somebody else's
completely. A beautiful song about disillusionment and betrayal, but
thanks to the sometimes grotesquely banal lyrics, it did not become
quite as corny as it had the potential for.
Satisfied. Now
there's a song. A beautifully balanced, slightly vulgar tribute to
the grand old masters Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. An intriguing
bit of trivia here is that Richards accompanied Waits on this album
himself, so all in all, it is quite a close-knit showbiz
circle of pals. Now that I'm rewatching the videos to comment on
them, it might look as though it's about a senile old man stumbling
drunkenly around his backyard. The voice certainly adds to the
notion. But do try to overlook that.
And
lastly, Hell Broke Luce. A clever wordplay as well as an
emotional song with so many layers it's difficult to keep track.
After listening to it a number of times, the only way I could
possibly describe it is: it is possible to create a heavy metal song
without the heavy metal. Take it as a clever wordplay on my part or
don't. There are two kinds of Tom Waits, the sensitive and quiet
ballad type and the walked-into-a-scrapyard-and-started-making-music
kind. Both are grotesque, vulgar and utterly enchanting.
Even
though not as big of a masterpiece as, say, Mule Variations (1999)
or Bone Machine (1992), there are multiple tracks of high
quality in Bad As Me and Waits once again reinforces his
rightful place at the top. The answer is blowing in the wind and it
is saying that, based on this, there is more to come. In the
meantime, must dust off Waits' biography and give it another read.
- Anette Helene Vijar
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