Is It Raining Tom??

When I was an early teenager I would go to the library and go through the albums and bring about 10 home just to listen to. At one point in my life I worked at this library. When shelving the albums one day. I think I was just starting, at this library. I would try to find albums I had no idea about. One of them was Rain Dogs by Tom Waits. I did not know what to think about this album. I noticed that the songs were short and there was 19 Songs. I never heard of any of them but they had great titles.

I got home and asked my parents if they heard of this. They looked blank at me. So my guess it was something new. I saved it for the last of the albums I was listening to. I grabbed the album and looked at the sleeve. The lyrics where funny and different. His analogies I had no idea how to grasp them. He obviously did because he wrote them.



This album was all his. He did not have any other songs written by other artists on this album. My best friend was away at school so I could not go see him and ask him. I placed the needle on the first song. It had a sea shanty type feel to it. It had a wonderful rhyme and even more the instruments were not of the 80's feel. No fake plastic synths or electronic. It was all full of guitar and upright bass and drums and marimba. The tone of this album was set with the first song.

Tom Waits is a mystery to me. He is amazing and each song on his albums are like a classic Raymond Carver short story. Rain Dogs is no exception. I was maybe to young to understand what he was telling us in his songs, but boy they sure sounded great. His voice was not the voice of a rock and roll man but a man who has been through the dirt and the grime a few times. I told my dad he sounded like a man who smoked too many cigarettes.



Each of the songs continued to amaze me. I heard "Time" and fell in love with the way it was played and the words were amazing. I still love that song. It may be my favorite Tom Waits song of all time. What I was more impressed with is Marc Ribot's guitar playing. He does not play these 1980's solo's, but he plays the guitar like it's on it's last legs. He keeps the tone in the whole album. I wish I knew how this album was created in such a bad place in popular music. It maybe it, there is the answer. It's not your album that would expect from 1985.

Tom voice works so well with whatever he does. He makes it feel different and unique. Most of the people who are on this album are some of the best that have come across the music scene. Each has a great resume that you wish they could be in your band or on your album.



What this album has that is unique is there is a spoken word piece. The song still makes me laugh. Here are the Lyrics;

"Well it's Ninth and Hennepin
All the doughnuts have names that sound like prostitutes
And the moon's teeth marks are on the sky
Like a tarp thrown all over this
And the broken umbrellas like dead birds
And the steam comes out of the grill
Like the whole goddamn town's ready to blow...
And the bricks are all scarred with jailhouse tattoos
And everyone is behaving like dogs
And the horses are coming down Violin Road
And Dutch is dead on his feet
And all the rooms they smell like diesel
And you take on the dreams of the ones who have slept here
And I'm lost in the window, and I hide in the stairway
And I hang in the curtain, and I sleep in your hat...
And no one brings anything small into a bar around here
They all started out with bad directions
And the girl behind the counter has a tattooed tear
One for every year he's away, she said
Such a crumbling beauty, ah
There's nothing wrong with her that a hundred dollars won't fix
She has that razor sadness that only gets worse
With the clang and the thunder of the Southern Pacific going by
And the clock ticks out like a dripping faucet
til you're full of rag water and bitters and blue ruin
And you spill out over the side to anyone who will listen...
And I've seen it all, I've seen it all
Through the yellow windows of the evening train..."

I mean I could only imagine how this was written. I wish I could write something like that. I laughed when I heard this for the first time. Could you write something like this????

When my best friend came back from school break, I showed him this. He took a copy back to school. He called me one night mentioning how much he loved it. It only was by the time I was a junior in High School how much Tom Waits meant. His words, his world, his uniqueness to the world. When I heard even Rod Stewart try to cover him, I almost threw up. He did not have the feel or the passion that Tom Waits did.

If you need something unique in your collection, and something that will turn heads then you have this. You should listen and enjoy a true classic. I still put it up there as one of my favorite albums of all time. I learned a lot from Rain Dogs and I am sure you will to. Enjoy! Tom Waits I salute you and your effect on my musical favorites.