Tom Waits' Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers, and Bastards

YES

I can't believe I hadn't heard of this until now, SO HYPE.

Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers and Bastards is a spectacular musical journey, which visits most every genre of American song tradition.

The diverse 56-song, 3-disc collection captures the full scope of Tom Waits’ shamanic powers as a vocalist, literary lyricist, romantic melodist, innovative arranger and pioneer of sonic worlds.

This deluxe limited edition release, written and produced by Waits and his longtime collaborator and wife, Kathleen Brennan contains 30 new and never before heard recordings, plus rare songs taken from collaborations with artists in film, literature and music—complete with a 94-page handmade booklet of lyrics and rare photos. The set, which took over three years to compile and record, is grouped by genre with songs guaranteed to move and shake the heart, the body, the mind and most unquestionably the soul.

Each of the CD’s are separately arranged and sub-titled – “Brawlers,” “Bawlers” and “Bastards” to encapsulate the full range of Waits’ nomadic scope of musical styles.

Brawlers is packed with full throated juke joint stomp, boogies and riotous blues. It’s roadhouse Waits,..He chugs, whistles and screams. It’s primal steaming surreal blues. He channels the Stones, Beefheart, Muddy Waters and T-Rex. One new one, “Low Down” is raw garage rock with Waits’ 20 year old son, Casey on drums and San Francisco’s white trash blues icon, Ron Hacker, on guitar.

Bawlers – Lonesome ballads about the sadness at the end of the road are framed by tender songs of innocence and green hope. The plaintive hill country laments of, “Tell It To Me” and the cautionary tale, “Fannin Street” blend poignantly with saloon songs of betrayal and despair (“The World Keeps Turning”) Celtic waltzes and bitter cabaret torch songs like, “It’s Over” and “Little Drop Of Poison”, all of which explore what the heart gives and what it takes away.

Bastards – explores the strange and unusual side of Waits, who is peculiar by nature. Contained here is experimental music and scary tales. There are uncategorizable diversions into this dark side. It tunnels beneath the city with spiels, rants, mouth rhythms, including a poignant reminiscence of car ownership, a Ramones cover and a version of Daniel Johnston’s, “King Kong,” a disturbing bedtime story,(not for children faint of heart),and a poem by Charles Bukowski. It has insects, murder, drowning and insanity. Or as ma says, the full dinner menu.

EVEN MORE FUCKING EXCITED ABOUT THIS THAN THE PAVEMENT REISSUE!

Tom reciprocating with the kids. Touches the heart...

That's some pretty prescient reciprocating, since the song is about ten years older than the band.

i think i might own enough waits albums for my needs actually!

all three discs?

i don't know whether to download or not!!

i think the official release is mid Nov (the 17th, i heard)..i guess i could click on my own link above, but, meh..

amen to the tenth power

anyone else fighting the leak urge?

2:19 and Fish In The Jailhouse got me all worked up...I am a little disappointed with the "booklet," which turns out to be lyrics and photos (one with Nicholas Cage? ? who is that?)and nothing related to the recording/collection of these tracks, but that is a secondary concern, and i am excited..

I mean, I got the 3-disc Tortoise box for $18.99 just a couple months ago! come on Tom!

I've managed to scrape the surface so far of each disc. This is definitely a "new" album rather than a compilation. Despite the fact he's split it into three sides, it's still very much a contemporary Waits record that reflects on his Americana schtick he's been touting since Bone Machine and more and more since Mule Variations. So if you're looking for Rain Dogs/Black Rider/Alice type material you might be a little dissapointed as it's definitely 3rd-generation material.

So is this Waits's Druqks? In a way, yes - there is nothing here that is going to surprise die-hard fans but it is still an excellent intro to his many sides. There's nothing as beautiful as "Innocent When You Dream" or affecting as "I Don't Wanna Grow Up" or even as weird as the "Lucky Day Overture", however it's still all there.

I'm a big fan of the poems on "Bastards", even though some are simple recitations of pieces by Bukowski etc. Elsewhere the "Road To Peace" is marvellous lyrically and musically.

It'll be a while till I've got to the bottom of this though.

If his back catalogue is better than Orphans, I'd better check it out.

you can be a very strange fellow DL...

I know that was a horribly crafted opinion, so i'll just finish and run (gotta drive half a day for the hollidays) by saying that I agree with the comment upthread about the poems/spoken word material. I heard "My Missing Son" this morning and can't wait to spin it again

i've gotta get away from the computer.

and yeah, even if his creativity fizzled, I would buy every remaining album he released till his death, because even at his worst, he is better than most. I think you'd agree.

now I really have to run...cheers

Dog Latin, i didn't know druqks was made up of collected small scale release things but i still find it a strange comparison.

xpost - that's interesting.

don't let me distract from the authenticity debate tho

OTM - don't forget that Waits had a pretty successful run as a songwriter in the 70s. The Eagles covered one of his songs, that alone is probably paying his mortgage to this day. I see Swordfishtrombones and later freakouts as a sign of luxury, not the lack of it. It's something that nags me when listening Waits, the schtickiness of it all. But he's a good enough songwriter and stylist that he gets away with it.

It wasn't a compilation, it was a new album but it was pretty clear that the material on Druqks was kind of a "ooh, let's have a trawl through my library and see what I haven't released yet" type affair as opposed to "I'm going to sit down and write an album" thing.

This, coming from the world's biggest Joanna Newsom fan is very surprising! ;-) I think "Vaudeville" was perhaps a bad choice of wording on Grizzle's part, but I know what he means. Yes, Tom Waits has always always been a method actor and you can split his career into three sections:

- Closing Time to Heartattack And Vine - Drunken Tramp Barprop Philosopher
- Swordfishtrombones to Black Rider (and including Alice and Blood Money which were written during this period) - Crazy Gothic Surrealist
- Bone Machine to Orphans - Gnarled Bluesman of the Tundra

I think what Grizzle is saying is that the latter is the least believable, or perhaps maybe the most believable and therefore the least exciting. Maybe?

jesus, how about writing your own opinion then? ffs! there are far too many people on this board going round telling everyone they're wrong but who never seem to contribute anything worthwhile themselves.

I can see where you're coming from, but does Newsom ever adopt a character persona? She's singing from her POV about her life nearly 100% of the time, albeit metaphorically. Waits singing about being a homeless bum is a little different, though, especially when he takes on so many characters you don't have a good idea of what the POV actually is.

Don't see that much difference between Swordfishtrombones/Rain Dogs and Bone Machine either - more of an extension of the direction he was already travelling in.

Everything I've heard by M Ward seems very pedestrian and not that interesting at all - maybe I just haven't heard the right stuff?

newsom may be using allegories to sing about her life, but to me it's still monkeys and bears and butterflies and i like it that way. fuck a real life tbh.

need to check m.ward.

No, I wasn't under that impression, although those earlier albums had a proximity to his formative years that seems to translate better with some of that angst. I mean, he just seemed leaner and hungrier then. It is like early Police vs. Current Sting: whose edge seems more authentic?

And maybe you are right...maybe the shtick is becoming more intolerable to me. I just feel like saying "Tom, you are a succesfull musician, responsible father, semi-accomplished actor, etc: please just churn our celtic love ballads while sitting by the fireplace."
That is, of course, my personal and absolutely subjective opinion on Waits. I still love his music, but the aspects of his music that I appreciate are in flux. I realized this after listening to a lot of Smoke, coming to the realization that Benjamin Smoke wasn't just singing it (with a very Waits-esque delivery) but he was truly living it.

And btw, I have been listening to "Long Way Home" and "Army Ants" incessantly...love them.

I am still stuck on the third disc but I think today is the day for the other two.

Bottom of the World is awesome

wtf is with that Israel song though .... it's like he's reading newspaper headlines. yuck.

i have heard a lot of praise for that song, but of all the tracks on the album, to me that one seems the most contrived.

the only thing i don't like about this album is that he's still sucking off kerouac.

so they're issuing this on vinyl + 6 vinyl only tracks. 7 LPs!

Damn! Should really be on 78's, with a Victrola and a bottle of rum thrown in!

"Nirvana", a Bukowski reading, is utterly captivating. There's other cuts like that on this set that are equally impressive. Does anyone have a list of Tom's spoken word pieces?

I wish these were available on vinyl separately. I like a lot of this overwhelming box, but I LOVE Brawlers (and, generally speaking, his Brawlers-esque material) and I think that's the only one I really want on wax. I may shell out for it one of these days if I'm feeling saucy and I can get it for under a hundred bucks or something.

Amazon's got it used-new for $25. Pricey if you only like one disc but, really, it's not worth it for the whole thing?

Does anyone have a list of Tom's spoken word pieces?
i don't have this list, but i do really dig the spoken words things on the orphans disc...that one about the kid on the bus! is that the bukowski thing you were referring to?

Yeah, that's "Nirvana" by Bukowski. Stunning, both the words and the delivery.

I should've followed up on that. I ended up compiling a list the best I could:
9th And Hennepin (Rain Dogs)
Army Ants (Orphans)
Big Joe and Phantom 309 (Nighthawks at the Diner)
Black Wings (Bone Machine)
Children's Story (Orphans)
Circus (Real Gone)
Dog Treat (Orphans)
Emotional Weather Report (Nighthawks at the Diner)
First Kiss (Orphans)
Frank's Wild Years (Swordfishtrombones)
Nirvana (Orphans)
Potter's Field (Foreign Affairs)
Putnam Country (Nighthawks at the Diner)
Small Change (Small Change)
Spare Parts II And Closing (Nighthawks at the Diner)
Spidey's Wild Ride (Orphans)
Story (Glitter And Doom)
The Ocean Doesn't Want Me (Bone Machine)
The Pontiac (Orphans)
Tom Tales (Glitter And Doom)
Trouble's Braids (Swordfishtrombones)
Watch Her Disappear (Alice)
What's He Building (Mule Variations)

a good playlist! depressing, perhaps.