Click On Title To Link To YouTube's Film Clip Of Tom Waits Doing "Rain Dogs"
CD Reviews
Rain Dogs, Tom Waits, Island Records, 1985
The inner lives of the denizens of that late night diner in the famous painting by the American realist artist Edward Hopper, “Nighthawks” (1942). The scorching literary sketches of the rich and famous and the skid row bums provided by the late “Gonzo” journalist Doctor Hunter Thompson, accompanied by the renderings of the artist Ralph Steadman. The jingle-jangle high side lyrics of the legendary folk musician Bob Dylan of the “Blood On The Tracks” period. The reach into the far side of the part of the psyche exhibited by those down at the base of American society in an earlier period by the novelist Nelson Algren in “Walk On The Wild Side”. And that same reach later by the man of the “mean” Los Angeles streets, Charles Bukowski. Wrap them all up in a whiskey-soaked, cigarette-scarred, gravelly, rasping voice and you have the idiosyncratic musician Tom Waits. Placed in that same company as above? Yes, by all means. Not a bad place to be, right?
Although I have been listening to the music of one Tom Waits for decades, every since I heard Jerry Jeff Walker do a cover of his classic song of loneliness, longing and reaching for the elusive promise of Saturday night dreams in “Looking For The Heart Of Saturday Night”, I am not familiar with his biography. All I know is that aside from his own far-reaching musical endeavors, as expressed in numerous albums over the years, he has acted in some motion pictures, most notably as a skid row philosopher of sorts in the movie version of William Kennedy’s “Ironweed” (a natural, right?) and has provided the soundtrack music to many movies, most notably the Al Pacino-starring “Sea Of Love”. That Waits soundtrack version of the late 1950’s, early 1960’s classic teenage anthem to longing and love is just the right example of what Brother Waits means musically to this reviewer. Taking that simple song of teenage longing, Waits’ husky-voiced rendition reaches back and turns it into something almost primordial, something that goes back beyond time to our first understandings that we are ‘alone’ in the universe. Enough said.
But so much for all of that because what I really want to mention is the “Waits effect”. Every once in a while I ‘need’ to listen to words and sounds that express the dark, misbegotten side of the human experience. You know, sagas of Gun Street girls, guys talking “Spanish in the halls’, people lost out there on the edge of society and the like. Is there anyone today who can musically put it better? If you need to hear about hope, dope, the rope. Wine, women and song or no wine, no women or no song. About whiskey-caked barroom floors, floozies, boozies, flotsam, jetsam, stale motel rooms, cigarette-infested hotels, wrong gees, jokers, smokers and ten-cent croakers. Drifters, grifters, no good midnight sifters. Life on the fast lane, nowhere lane, some back street alley, perhaps, out in the valley. This, my friends is you address. Listen up. Professor Waits is at the lectern.
This one is filled with great work. The evocative “Gun Street Girl”, the dark “Walking Spanish”, “Hang Down Your Head” and the title track “Rain Dogs” lead this parade.
"Gun Street Girl"
Falling James in the Tahoe mud
Stick around to tell us all the tail
He fell in love with a Gun Street Girl and
Now he's danced in the Birmingham jail.
Took a 100 dollars off a slaughterhouse Joe
Brought a bran' new michigan 20 gauge
Got all liquored up on that road house corn,
Blew a hole in the hood of a yellow corvette
Blew a hole in the hood of a yellow corvette.
Brought a second hand Nova from a Cuban Chinese
Dyed his hair in the bathroom of Texaco
With a pawnshop radio, quarter past 4
Well, he left Waukegan at the slammin' of the door
He left Waukegan at the slammin' of the door
Chorus:
I said John, John he's long gone
Gone to Indiana
Ain't never coming home
I said John, John he's long gone
Gone to Indiana, ain't never coming home.
Sitting in a sycamore in St. John's Wood
Soaking' day old bread in kerosene
He was blue as a robin's egg brown as a hog
Stayin' out of circulation till the dogs get tire
Stayin' out of circulation till the dogs get tired
Shadow fixed the toilet with an old trombone
He never got up in the morning on a Saturday
Sittin' by the Erie with a bull whipped dog
Tellin' everyone he saw
They went thatta way
Tellin' everyone he saw
They went thatta way.
Now the rain's like gravel on old tin roof
And the Burlinton Northern's pullin' out of the world
With a head full of bourbon and a dream in the straw.
And a Gun Street Girl was the cause of it all.
Riding in the shadow by the St. Joe Ridge
He heard the click clack tappin' of a blind man's cane
Pullin' into Baker on New Year's Eve
With one eye on the pistol the other on the door,
With one eye on the pistol the other on the door.
Miss Charlotte took her satchel down to King Row
And the smuggled in a bran' new pair of alligator shoes.
With her fireman's raincoat and her long yellow hair, well
They tied her to a tree with a skinny millionaire,
They tied her to a tree with a skinny millionaire.
Chorus
I said John, John he's long gone
Gone to Indiana
Ain't never coming home
I said John, John he's long gone
Gone to Indiana, ain't never coming home.
Bangin' on a table with an old tin cup
Sing I'll never kiss a Gun Street Girl again,
I'll never kiss a Gun Street Girl again.
Repeat chorus
Walking Spanish Lyrics
He's got himself a homemade special
You know his glass is full of sand
And it feels just like a jaybird the way it fits into his hand
He rolled a blade up in his trick towel
They slap their hands against the wall
You never trip, you never stumble
He's walking Spanish down the hall
Slip him a picture of our Jesus
Or give him a spoon to dig a hole
What all he done ain't no one's business
But he'll need blankets for the cold
They dim the lights over on Broadway
Even the king has bowed his head
And every face looks right up at Mason
Man he's walking Spanish down the hall
Litella's screeching for a blind pig
Punk Sanders carved it out of wood
He never sang when he got hoodwinked
They tried it all but he never would
Tomorrow morning there'll be laundry
But he'll be somewhere else to hear the call
Don't say goodbye, he's just leaving early
He's walking Spanish down the hall
All St. Barthelemew said
Was whispered into the ear of Blind Jack Dawes
All Baker told the machine was that he never broke the law
Go on and tip your hat up to the Pilate
Take off your watch, your rings and all
Even Jesus wanted just a little more time
When he was walking Spanish down the hall
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