Rain Dogs

About

Widely considered the creative peak of a long and storied career, Tom Waits’ ninth album, 1985’s <i>Rain Dogs</i>, is a gutter symphony populated by colorful characters: a one-eyed ship captain; a blind boilerman; an accordion-playing slaughterhouse worker; a calendar girl with a razor in her boot; and, of course, the titular “rain dogs” who live in the streets and huddle in the doorway. “All the people on the album are knit together by some corporeal way of sharing pain and discomfort,” Waits said in 1985, and you can hear that shared commiseration all over <i>Rain Dogs</i>, which features everything from teary-eyed ballads (“Hang Down Your Head,” “Time”) to fractured nursery rhymes (“Clap Hands”) to New Orleans funeral brass (“Anywhere I Lay My Head”)—and so much more. The first album written and recorded after Waits moved to New York City, the ramshackle sound of <i>Rain Dogs</i> gets a lot of help from the city’s downtown jazz-scene player, including John Lurie, Robert Quine, Greg Cohen, and Bobby Previte. They’re accompanied by a junkyard of sound—the result of Waits expanding his textures to include marimba, singing saw, accordion, banjo, and, most notably, the percussive guitar of Marc Ribot, whose rubbery twang would make appearances on Waits’ records for decade. The resulting album is raucou, exciting, and full of sonic surprise. On “Singapore,” the drum sound was created by smacking a two-by-four on a chest of drawer. Meanwhile, the cacophonous blues stomp of “Big Black Mariah,” the barroom chug of “Union Square,” and the gorgeous country ballad “Blind Love” all feature guitar from none other than Keith Richard. .

via Apple Music

The Clerk says

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