The 1983 Listening Post - Tom Waits - Swordfishtombones

The 1983 Listening Post - Tom Waits - Swordfishtombones

#171
September 1983
Tom Waits
Swordfishtrombones
5 out of 5

Highlights:
Undergound
Shore Leave
Johnsburg, Illinois
16 Shells from a Thirty-Ought Six
In the Neighborhood
Frank’s Wild Years
Swordfishtrombones
Down Down Down
Trouble's Braids

Tom Waits used to rent videos from the store I worked in in the west village. He would come in and growl at his kid in a playful way. His voice, man. That voice.
I’d heard his stuff many times, but it all was booze soaked bar piano stuff, like the guy who takes over for Billy Joel in the club at 3 in the morning cuz that’s the only time he’s awake.
Swordfish is something so very different than that. It’s radio. It’s theater. It’s cinema. It’s a fulfillment of promise. It’s dank and dark. He’s the troubadour of the freaks and that is why the video for “In The Neighborhood” is presented that way. I don’t think the imagery is evoked because I saw that video in the wee hours on MTV. I think that I would’ve conjured that image regardless.
Many people think Rain Dogs is better. Or even his later stuff. This is Tom Waits for me. I want to put it on at 2 in the morning while I’m sucking the life out of a bottle of Laphroaig and staring off into the flat, lifeless, light-dotted, nearly neon Los Angeles night…never could stand that dog.