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Tom Waits: Swordfishtrombones

 A l b u m   D e t a i l s


Label: Island Records
Released: 1983.09.01
Time:
 41:42
Category: Progressive Rock
Producer(s): Tom Waits
Rating: *********. (9/10)
Media type: CD
Web address: www.anti.com
Appears with:
Purchase date: 2001.05.21
Price in €: 9,99





 S o n g s ,   T r a c k s


[1] Underground (Waits) - 1:58
[2] Shore Leave (Waits) - 4:12
[3] Dave the Butcher (Waits) - 2:15
[4] Johnsburg, Illinois (Waits) - 1:30
[5] 16 Shells from a Thirty-Ought Six (Waits) - 4:30
[6] Town With No Cheer (Waits) - 4:22
[7] In the Neighborhood (Waits) - 3:04
[8] Just Another Sucker on the Vine (Waits) - 1:42
[9] Frank's Wild Years (Waits) - 1:50
[10] Swordfishtrombone (Waits) - 3:00
[11] Down, Down, Down (Waits) - 2:10
[12] Soldier's Things (Waits) - 3:15
[13] Gin Soaked Boy (Waits) - 2:20
[14] Trouble's Braids (Waits) - 1:18
[15] Rainbirds (Waits) - 3:05

 A r t i s t s ,   P e r s o n n e l


TOM WAITS - Synthesizer, Fiddle, Guitar, Arranger, Composer, Harmonium, Hammond B3 Organ, Vocals, Design, Cover Art Concept, Producer

VICTOR FELDMAN - Percussion, Conga, Bass Drums, Marimba, Tambourine, Multi Instruments, Snare Drums
SHELLY MANNE - Drums
BILL REICHENBACH - Trombone
PETE JOLLY - Piano, Accordion
LANNY MORGAN - Wind
LES THOMPSON - Harmonica
RONNIE BARRON - Keyboards, Hammond B3 Organ
ERIC BIKALES - Organ
LARRY TAYLOR - Bass, Acoustic Bass
BOB ALCIVAR - Piano
RANDALL ALDCROFT - Trombone, Baritone Horn, Baritone Saxophone
DENNIS BUDIMIR - Guitar
LARRY BUNKER - Drums
ANTHONY CLARK - Bagpipes
GREG COHEN - Bass, Acoustic Bass
TEDDY EDWARDS - Saxophone
CHUCK FINDLEY - Trumpet
RICHARD GIBBS - Harmonica, Glass Harmonica
CARLOS GUITARLOS - Guitar, Electric Guitar
STEPHEN HODGES - Harmonica, Drums
RICHARD HYDE - Trombone
JACK SHELDON - Trumpet
GAYLE LAVANT - Horn
JOHN LOWE - Wind
JEFF PORCARO - Percussion
EMIL RICHARDS - Vibraphone
JOE ROMANO - Trombone, Trumpet
ANTHONY STEWART - Bagpipes
FRED TACKETT - Banjo, Guitar, Electric Guitar
BIG JOHN THOMASSIE - Drums
FRANCIS THUMM - Harmonica, Arranger, Glass Harmonica, Angklung
DONALD WALDROP - Tuba
DICK HYDE - Trombone
CLARK SPANGLER - Programming, Synthesizer Programming

CRYSTAL GAYLE - Vocals

TIM BOYLE - Engineer
BIFF DAWES - Engineer, Mixing
PEGGY MCCREARY - Assistant Engineer
RICHARD MCKERNON - Assistant Engineer
BILL JACKSON - Assistant Engineer
JEFF SANDERS - Mastering
FRANK MULVEY - Art Direction
MICHAEL SOLOMON - Production Coordination

 C o m m e n t s ,   N o t e s


1982 CD Island 422-842469-2
1983 LP Island 90095
1990 LP Island 842469
1982 CS Island 422-842469-4



Between the release of Heartattack and Vine in 1980 and Swordfishtrombones in 1983, Tom Waits got rid of his manager, his producer, and his record company. And he drastically altered a musical approach that had become as dependable as it was unexciting. Swordfishtrombones had none of the strings and much less of the piano work that Waits' previous albums had employed; instead, the dominant sounds on the record were low-pitched horns, bass instruments, and percussion, set in spare, close-miked arrangements (most of them by Waits) that sometimes were better described as "soundscapes." Lyrically, Waits' tales of the drunken and the lovelorn had been replaced by surreal accounts of people who burned down their homes and of Australian towns bypassed by the railroad — a world (not just a neighborhood) of misfits now had his attention. The music could be primitive, moving to odd time signatures, while Waits alternately howled and wheezed in his gravelly bass voice. He seemed to have moved on from Hoagy Carmichael and Louis Armstrong to Kurt Weill and Howlin' Wolf (as impersonated by Captain Beetheart). Waits seems to have had trouble interesting a record label in the album, which was cut 13 months before it was released, but when it appeared rock critics predictably raved: After all, it sounded weird and it didn't have a chance of selling. Actually, it did make the bottom of the bestseller charts, like most of Waits' albums, and, now that he was with a label based in Europe, even charted there. Artistically, Swordfishtrombones marked an evolution of which Waits had not seemed capable (though there were hints of this sound on his last two Asylum albums), and in career terms it re-invented him.

William Ruhlmann, All-Music Guide



The first album of the loose trilogy that also includes Rain Dogs and Franks Wild Years, Swordfishtrombones marked a radical departure for Waits, whose avant-garde ambitions became plain not so much in his lyrics or subject matter--the songs here deal, as do his older albums, with hard life on the wrong side of the tracks and dreams of escape and transcendence--but in the music, a sound somewhere between German cabaret music from between the wars and contemporary Manhattan rush hour. Odd time signatures, unusual instrumentation (glass harmonicas and brake drums, among others), and Waits's barked vocals make this one of his most individualistic and challenging albums.

Daniel Durchholz, , Amazon.com essential recording



Auf diesem ersten Album einer losen Trilogie, zu der noch Rain Dogs und Franks Wild Years gehören, schlug Tom Waits eine völlig neue Richtung ein. Seine Avantgarde-Ambitionen zeigten sich jedoch nicht in seinen Texten oder den Inhalten -- es geht hier, wie auch auf seinen früheren Alben, um das harte Leben von vom Wege abgekommenen Menschen und deren Träume von einem besseren Leben --, sondern in der Musik, die irgendwo zwischen deutscher Cabaretmusik aus der Zeit zwischen den Weltkriegen und moderner Manhattan-Rush-Hour anzusiedeln ist. Ausgefallene Taktbezeichnungen, ungewöhnliche Instrumentierungen (u.a. Glasharmonikas und Bremstrommeln) und Tom Waits bellende Stimme machen dies zu einem seiner individualistischsten und anspruchsvollsten Alben.

Daniel Durchholz, Amazon.de



Waits' debut for Island Records is nothing short of a modern American masterpiece-an anthology of gin-soaked, graphic tales of pleasure and pain. The trademark gravelly (make that rock-filled) voice is still present but Waits sounds more melodic and tuneful than ever before. His rabid cult following will eat this one up without a doubt-yet it's about time that Tom Waits receives the widespread recognition he deserves. He's witty, poignant and powerful-and a master storyteller to boot Open your ears and minds. Top cuts: "Shore Leave, "Johnsburg, Illinois," "16 Shells From A 30.6," "In The Neighborhood," and the title track.

College Media, Inc. - CMJ New Music Report Issue: 25 - Oct 10, 1983
 

 L y r i c s


UNDERGROUND

Rattle Big Black Bones
in the Danger zone
there's a rumblin' groan
down below
there's a big dark town
it's a place I've found
there's a world going on
UNDERGROUND
they're alive, they're awake
while the rest of the world is asleep
below the mine shaft roads
it will all unfold
there's a world going on
UNDERGROUND
all the roots hang down
swing from town to town
they are marching around
down under your boots
all the trucks unload
beyond the gopher holes
there's a world going on
UNDERGROUND


SHORE LEAVE

Well with buck shot eyes and a purple heart
I rolled down the national stroll
and with a big fat paycheck
strapped to my hip sack
and a shore leave wristwatch underneath
my sleeve
in a Hong Kong drizzle on Cuban heels
I rowed down the gutter to the Blood Bank
and I'd left all my papers on the Ticonderoga
and was in a bad need of a shave
and so I slopped at the corner on cold chow mein
and shot billards with a midget
until the rain stopped
and I bought a long sleeved shirt
with horses on the front
and some gum and a lighter and a knife
and a new deck of cards (with girls on the back)
and I sat down and wrote a letter to my wife

and I said Baby, I'm so far away from home
and I miss my Baby so
I can't make it by myself
I love you so

Well I was pacing myself
trying to make it all last
squeezing all the life
out of a lousy two day pass
and I had a cold one at the Dragon
with some Filipino floor show
and talked baseball with a lieutenant
over a Singapore sling
and I wondered how the same moon outside
over this Chinatown fair
could look down on Illinois
and find you there
and you know I love you Baby

and I'm so far away from home
and I miss my Baby so
I can't make it by myself
I love you so

Shore Leave...
Shore Leave...


DAVE THE BUTCHER

Instrumental


JOHNSBURG, ILLINOIS

She's my only true love
she's all that I think of
look here in my wallet
that's her
She grew up on a farm there
there's a place on my arm
where I've written her name
next to mine
you see I just can't
live without her
and I'm her only boy
and she grew up outside McHenry
in Johnsburg, Illinois


16 SHELLS FROM A THIRTY-OUGHT-SIX

I plugged 16 shells from a thirty-ought-six
and a Black Crow snuck through
a hole in the sky
so I spent all my buttons on an
old pack mule
and I made me a ladder from
a pawn shop marimba
and I leaned it up against
a dandelion tree

And I filled me a sachel
full of old pig corn
and I beat me a billy
from an old French horn
and I kicked that mule
to the top of the tree
and I blew me a hole
'bout the size of a kickdrum
and I cut me a switch
from a long branch elbow

Chorus
I'm gonna whittle you into kindlin'
Black Crow 16 shells from a thirty-ought-six
whittle you into kindlin'
Black Crow 16 shells from a thirty-ought-six

Well I slept in the holler
of a dry creek bed
and I tore out the buckets
from a red Corvette, tore out the buckets from a red Corvette
Lionel and Dave and the Butcher made three
you got to meet me by the knuckles of the skinnybone tree
with the strings of a Washburn
stretched like a clothes line
you know me and that mule scrambled right through the hole

Repeat Chorus

Now I hold him prisoner
in a Washburn jail
that stapped on the back
of my old kick mule
strapped it on the back of my old kick mule
I bang on the strings just
to drive him crazy
I strum it loud just to rattle his cage
strum it loud just to rattle his cage

Repeat Chorus


TOWN WITH NO CHEER

Well it's hotter 'n blazes and all the long faces
there'll be no oasis for a dry local grazier
there'll be no refreshment for a thirsty jackaroo
from Melbourne to Adelaide on the overlander
with newfangled buffet cars and faster locomotives
the train stopped in Serviceton less and less often
There's nothing sadder than a town with no cheer
VicRail decided the canteen was no longer necessary
there no spirits, no bilgewater and 80 dry locals
and the high noon sun beats a hundred and four
there's a hummingbird trapped in a closed down shoe store

This tiny Victorian rhubarb
kept the watering hole open for sixty five years
now it's boilin' in a miserable March 21 st
wrapped the hills in a blanket of Patterson's curse
the train smokes down the xylophone
there'll be no stopping here
all ya can be is thirsty in a town with no cheer
no Bourbon, no Branchwater
though the townspeople here
fought the Vic Rail decree tooth and nail
now it's boilin' in a miserable March 21 st
wrapped the hills in a blanket of Patterson's curse
the train smokes down the xylophone
there'll be no stopping here
all ya can be is thirsty in a town with no cheer


IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD

Well the eggs chase the bacon
round the fryin' pan
and the whinin' dog pidgeons
by the steeple bell rope
and the dogs tipped the garbage pails
over last night
and there's always construction work
bothering you
In the neighborhood
In the neighborhood
In the neighborhood

Friday's a funeral
and Saturday's a bride
Sey's got a pistol on the register side
and the goddamn delivery trucks
they make too much noise
and we don't get our butter
delivered no more
In the neighborhood
In the neighborhood
In the neighborhood

Well Big Mambo's kicking
his old grey hound
and the kids can't get ice cream
'cause the market burned down
and the newspaper sleeping bags
blow down the lane
and that goddamn flatbed's
got me pinned in again
In the neighborhood
In the neighborhood
In the neighborhood

There's a couple Filipino girls
gigglin' by the church
and the windoe is busted
and the landlord ain't home
and Butch joined the army
yea that's where he's been
and the jackhammer's diggin'
up the sidewalks again
In the neighborhood
In the neighborhood
In the neighborhood


JUST ANOTHER SUCKER ON THE VINE

Instrumental


FRANK'S WILD YEARS

Well Frank settled down in the Valley
and hung his wild years
on a nail that he drove through
his wife's forehead
he sold used office furniture
out there on San Fernando Road
and assumed a $30,000 loan
at 15 1/4 % and put down payment
on a little two bedroom place
his wife was a spent piece of used jet trash
made good bloody marys
kept her mouth shut most of the time
had a little Chihuahua named Carlos
that had some kind of skin disease
and was totally blind. They had a
thoroughly modern kitchen
self-cleaning oven (the whole bit)
Frank drove a little sedan
they were so happy

One night Frank was on his way home
from work, stopped at the liquor store,
picked up a couple Mickey's Big Mouths
drank 'em in the car on his way
to the Shell station, he got a gallon of
gas in a can, drove home, doused
everything in the house, torched it,
parked across the street, laughing,
watching it burn, all Halloween
orange and chimney red then
Frank put on a top forty station
got on the Hollywood Freeway
headed north

Never could stand that dog


SWORDFISHTROMBONES

Well he came home from the war
with a party in his head
and modified Brougham DeVille
and a pair of legs that opened up
like butterfly wings
and a mad dog that wouldn't
sit still
he went and took up with a Salvation Army
Band girl
who played dirty water
on a swordfishtrombone
he went to sleep at the bottom of
Tenkiller lake
and he said "gee, but it's
great to be home."

Well he came home from the war
with a party in his head
and an idea for a fireworks display
and he knew that he'd be ready with
a stainless steel machete
and a half a pint of Ballentine's
each day
and he holed up in room above a hardware store
cryin' nothing there but Hollywood tears
and he put a spell on some
poor little Crutchfield girl
and stayed like that for 27 years

Well he packed up all his
expectations he lit out for California
with a flyswatter banjo on his knee
with a lucky tiger in his angel hair
and benzedrine for getting there
they found him in a eucalyptus tree
lieutenant got him a canary bird
and shaked her head with every word
and Chesterfielded moonbeams in a song
and he got 20 years for lovin' her
from some Oklahoma governor
said everything this Doughboy
does is wrong

Now some say he's doing
the obituary mambo
and some say he's hanging on the wall
perhaps this yarn's the only thing
that holds this man together
some say he was never here at all

Some say they saw him down in
Birmingham, sleeping in a
boxcar going by
and if you think that you can tell a bigger tale
I swear to God you'd have to tell a lie...


DOWN, DOWN, DOWN

He went down down down
and the devil called him by name
he went down down down
hangin' onto the back of a train
he went down down down
this boy went solid down
always chewed tobacco
and the bathtub gin
always chewed tobacco
and the bathtub gin
he went down down down
this boy went solid down
he went down

Well he went down down down
and the jumped on his head
he went down down down
stayin' in a broken down shed
he went down down down
sleepin' in the devil's bed
he went down down down
never listened to the words I said
he went down down down down
he went down

Well he went down down down
and the devil said where you been
he went down down down
he screamin' down around the bend
down down down
this boy went solid down

He was always cheatin'
and he always told lies
he was always cheatin'
and he always told lies
he went down down down
down down down
this boy went solid down
he went down


SOLDIER'S THINGS

Davenports and kettle drums
and swallow tail coats
table cloths and patent leather shoes
bathing suits and bowling balls
and clarinets and rings
and all this radio really
needs is a fuse
a tinker, a tailor
a soldier's things
his rifle, his boots full of rocks
and this one is for bravery
and this one is for me
and everything's a dollar
in this box

Cuff links and hub caps
trophies and paperbacks
it's good transportation
but the brakes aren't so hot
neck tie and boxing gloves
this jackknife is rusted
you can pound that dent out
on the hood
a tinker, a tailor
a soldier's things
his rifle, his boots full of rocks
oh and this one is for bravery
and this one is for me
and everything's a dollar
in this box


GIN SOAKED BOY

I got a belly full of you
and that Leavenworth stuff
now I'm gonna get out
And I'm gonna get tough
you been lying to me
How could you crawl so low
with some gin-soaked boy
that you don't know

I come home last night
full a filth of Old Crow
you said you goin' to your ma's
but where the hell did you go
you went and slipped out nights
you didn't think that I'd know
with some
gin-soaked boy that you don't know

Well I would bet you as far
as Oklahoma by now
the dogs are barking out back
and you're knittin' your brow
well I'm on your tail I sussed your M.O.
from some gin-soaked boy
boy that you don't know


TROUBLE'S BRAIDS

Well I pulled on trouble's braids
and I hid in the briars
out by the quick mud
stayin' away from the main roads
passin' out wolf tickets
downwind from the blood hounds
and I pulled on trouble's braids
and I lay by a cypress
as quiet as a stone
'til the bleeding stopped
I blew the weather vane
off some old road house
I build a fire in the
skeleton back seat of an old Tucker
and I pulled on trouble's braids
I spanked cold red mud
where the hornet stung deep
and I tossed in the ditch
in a restless sleep
and I pulled on trouble's braids
I hung my rain-soaked jacket
on some old barbed wire
poured cold rusty water
on a miserable fire
I pulled on trouble's braids
the creek was swollen by daybreak and I could just
barely see
and I floated downstream
on an old dead tree
and I pulled on trouble's braids
I pulled on trouble's braids
I pulled on trouble's braids
I pulled on trouble's braids


RAINBIRDS

Instrumental

 M P 3   S a m p l e s


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