80s Music Review: Tom Waits Swordfishtrombones

Swordfishtrombones was released in 1983, so technically it's an '80s album. But the sounds coming out of this recording are definitely not what I think of when I think of '80s music. Frankly I think that's good. This was also the first record produced by Waits himself, and it begins the path towards his "weirder" sound. Read, "The really good stuff."

When I think of '80s music, I think of synthesizers, I think of drum machines and I think of losing my mind. In the midst of all of this you've got Tom Waits and his organic, dust-settled music set to bizarre, howling vocals. Or maybe the vocals are set to the dusty music. Whatever it is, I'm not the only one confused as to what to call it. Waits's music usually settles for the "experimental" classification, and Swordfishtrombones is more or less the beginning of the experiment.

But does the world share Mr. Waits's strange interests? Spin Magazine thought highly of Swordfishtrombones, calling it the second greatest album of all time in 1989. And everybody knows that whatever you read in Spin Magazine you can take straight to the bank. Like the time they named Milli Vanilli "Most Legitimate Act in Music."

"In the Neighborhood" pretty much sums up Waits's style to me, that whole slice of life kind of thing. I read a review where the author described Waits's songs as being small movies, and the more I thought about that the more I realized the guy was completely right. Every one of the songs on Swordfishtrombones are like miniature films. If you dim the lights and close your eyes, you can picture all the things coming out of Waits's mouth, hands and everything else he and his entourage play. "Trouble's Braids" makes you feel like you're fiercely creeping around the darkness during a wind storm in July, fleeing from the law after doing something notorious. I'm sure we can all relate to that, right?

What's so cool about Swordfishtrombones and everything else Tom Waits lays his spirit into is that sometimes you don't need to relate. You can just sit back and soak it in. If Styx's turd "Mr. Roboto" is supposed to be like a trip to space, Swordfishtrombones is more like a Sunday afternoon trip to the cinema with your grandfather. Completely uncool but totally rad. If the Eurythmics dominated MTV with "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)," Tom Waits would have dominated old time radio shows with "16 Shells from a Thirty-Ought-Six" and "Gin Soaked Boy." Def Leppard is to cartoons and television as Tom Waits is to screenplays and film. Okay, enough of those.

Maybe that's why Tom and his wife, Kathleen Brennan - coauthor of many of Waits's songs and often cited by Waits as a major influence on his work - write for plays, and why Tom acts in movies, as well. Or maybe not, what do I know?

Swordfishtrombones became part of a trilogy of records, continuing with Rain Dogs in 1985 and Franks Wild Years [sic] in 1987. And to add confusion to the weird, the song "Frank's Wild Years," makes it home on Swordfishtrombones. It's also the name of a play written by Waits and Brennan. A pointer for keeping it all straight in the ol' noggin is to keep an eye on the apostrophe placement on the word "Frank." What it means is mysterious as the man and wife who birthed it.

Top 5 Ways to Buy Swordfishtrombones
Amazon.com
CDuniverse
ClipMart
DeepDiscount
Vinyl at NetSoundMusic