Tom Waits: Used Songs (1973-1980)
Elektra/Rhino R2 78351. Dan Hersch, Bill Inglot, remastering
engs. AAD. TT: 76:54.
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 After 18 albums and a career
spanning three decades, Tom Waits has practically become part of the cultural landscape
without ever having actually become popular -- no mean feat. But his hipster's glare and
phlegmy growl are instantly recognizable to countless people who couldn't identify a
single song of his.
And that's a pity because Waits is a consummate song
craftsman. His tales of loneliness and yearning, set in LA's demimonde, started out as the
West Coast's dark mirror to Bruce Springsteen's doomed Jersey-shore romances and reached
its apotheosis in "Jersey Girl," the greatest Springsteen song that the Jersey
bard never wrote -- a fact Springsteen acknowledged by covering it on the B side of
"Pink Cadillac" and co-opting it in his concerts.
But sometime around 1982, Waits turned his back on
conventional song structure and storytelling. His music turned experimental and his lyrics
stopped dealing in linear storytelling and tuned into some dark, fractured, intensely
personal realm. In other word, Waits stopped giving his fans what they'd grown used to and
challenged them to grow with him.
A lot of them couldn't follow him into his new territory.
The conventional verse/chorus/verse structure of his earlier folk-jazz shattered into
angular lines of aggressively experimental sound. He crafted his sound around strange
percussion instruments, jagged horn arrangements, and experimental recording techniques.
And his songwriting now occupied a mythic landscape that, like Bob Dylan's, seemed to
borrow in equal measures from America's dark places and his own personal unconscious.
It was a bold move. Waits had discovered the second act
that Fitzgerald swore did not exist in American lives: He grew up. Many of his fans never
forgave him for that. It's true that his albums from that point on grew increasingly
challenging, not to say disturbing -- but to some of us, they also grew deeper and
increasingly brilliant.
That period is the subject of 1998's compilation
of material from Waits' tenure at Island Records, Beautiful Maladies: The Island Years
[Island 524519]. Used Songs, on the other hand, deals with Waits' early years and
is accessible to anyone who values well-crafted songs
-- assuming, that is, a willingness to accept a voice most charitably described as
ravaged.
One could practically grab any 16 songs from Waits' first
eight albums and come up with a record worth listening to, but it must be said that
whoever picked and sequenced the selections on Used Songs had impeccable taste.
"Heartattack and Vine" opens the album with its classic distillation of lowlife
brio: "This stuff will probably kill us/Let's do another line!"
The collection then takes a leisurely stroll through
late/middle period Waits, putting off the conventional starting place for an appreciation
of Waits -- "Ol' '55" -- until track seven. Blue Valentine contributes
four songs here -- "Whistlin' Past the Graveyard," "Christmas Card From a
Hooker in Minneapolis," "Wrong Side of the Road," and "Blue
Valentine" -- but I miss that record's cover of "Somewhere," where Waits'
gravelly gargling adds an entirely new level of longing to the song's wistful
prayerfulness.
But there's an embarrassment of riches in those early days.
Used Songs includes only a single song from Nighthawks at the Diner, an
album many Waits fans find almost perfect. If that's probably the right decision, if you
like the songs you hear here, Nighthawks is worth owning in its entirety.
One thing that has remained constant from the earliest
songs collected here has been the sound quality of Waits' output. It is uniformly superb,
so Used Songs doesn't suffer from the sonic schizophrenia so common to compilation
albums. The sound is natural and full-bodied and, as Waits' voice deepens with age and
whisky and cigarettes, you hear it fissure and crack. In fact, you can probably tell
precisely which grade of gravel he is using in his throat for each song included here.
I own all of these recordings on LP and even augmented most
of them with the CD versions when they were made available, yet I find the sequencing and
selection here completely satisfying. Like all fans, I could quibble and make a case for
some favorites omitted here, but I can't fault any of the choices included. It's a great
collection for a fan -- and an even better one for anyone who has not yet made the
acquaintance of Waits' classic songs. If that includes you, don't hesitate, buy Used
Songs and get to know them.
...Wes Phillips
wes@onhifi.com
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