Chapter 9 - Tom Waits - Heartattack And Vine

Chapter 9 

What could possibly be the exact opposite of Enya? Steak knives drenched in motor oil? Death Metal or possibly Clown Core? Nope. Wait for it... wait... Tom Waits! Patron Saint of Hobo Hipsters. 

We now teleport from the green and pleasantly misty fields of Ireland to the decidedly less pleasant intersection of Heartattack and Vine. The story is that a homeless lady carrying a dead animal walked up to the bartender and said she was going to have a heart attack. The bartender stone cold replied that she was more than welcome to go back outside to do that. So, Waits started calling Hollywood Blvd. Heartattack Blvd. I hear tell one of the tracks from this album was used as the theme music for a 1985 miniseries called "The Atlanta Child Murders." If all that's not the opposite of Enya then i give up. His wife is Irish though, so further confirmation bias that opposites attract? 

Best story about this album though is that Screamin' Jay Hawkins did a cover of the title track. Levi Strauss & Co. (yes, this time it IS the jeans people, and i honestly didn't plan that coincidence), licensed Hawkins' version for a commercial, not realizing Tom Waits was adamantly against any use of his music for any kind of advertising. Waits sued in Europe and of course won, so Levi's had to make a public apology statement and presumably pay him a lot of money (but probably not as much as Enya wringed out of Fugees after putting them through the wash). Just like with Beastie Boys, that IS a legitimate defense of copyright. 

Levi's, unlike critics and mainstream listeners, "have long admired Mr. Waits' work and respect his artistic integrity." I distinctly remember reading a review panning this album, and calling him a "minor talent." If Screamin' Jay Hawkins covering your song constitutes "minor talent," then it's no wonder we're all doomed to a life of corporate crap pop blasted down from the ceiling. To borrow an analogously apropos summary from The Dead Milkmen, if you ain't got Mojo Nixon then your store could use some fixin'. 

Again, i don't put any planning into these connections, they just serve themselves up on an old-school brown plastic McDonalds tray. You all remember when McDonalds was just 50 shades of dingy brown, right? Even the yellow was brown when i was a kid. 

Snarl us some Saturday night songs about the seedy side of Starsville [snap] i mean Hollywood, Mr. Waits, i promise to patiently attend them. 

Yep, me and my scrambled eggs are definitely better off in Iowa than crawling down Cahuenga on a pair of broken legs. Another fun coincidence, that one, considering i have a batch of meat birds to butcher this weekend. 

What a Side A. If you're not familiar with Tom Waits at all, then you should know that he doesn't so much sing as growl mostly in tune. Imagine the craziest Joe Cocker scat interlude, but make that your normal singing voice. These aren't going to be normal songs, are they? Drugs and alcohol and prostitutes and hustlers. Once again, total coincidence that he says "you with your baby on a Saturday night" in Jersey Girl and i picked it for Saturday night. Definitely spooky when you flip it over and he says "you buy the Sunday paper on a Saturday Night," in a verse about everything being all messed up. It's uncanny, but i can't help what i'm not doing on purpose. 

But back to what to expect if you don't know Waits. I mentioned the beligerant growling like a drunk James Earl Jones (or maybe like Bobcat Goldthwait down an octave); yes, exactly what you think from looking at the cover, but this is serious Blues Rock. It's grimy, it's spooky like Voodoo, it's off the hinges and about as raunchy as you can get without actually being raunchy, then all of a sudden you get the most melancholic orchestral and piano accompaniment for a sad lullaby about the homeless people on 5th street (called "the nickel"). 

This is a concept album from the underbelly, and what it really highlights is our common humanity. What's most fascinating about this album is that Heartattack and Vine, the title track, is the actual concept, and everything else is Tom Waits' character's version of being inside that story. Conceptually anyone could cover that prologue, then proceed to give their own version. The track 2 instrumental really sets it off that way, like the rest of the album is random people at the bar confessing their particular sin. Sure, you could kinda say that for any album with a sysopsis for a first track, but i doubt you'll find any examples of an album that uses it as effectively. What you find out is that we are all just people, even the ones you pretend are the dregs of society. Yes, even the ones who wake up still rip roaring drunk and plan to light their hotel on fire. They're aware of their own dramatic irony, which by the way is meta-irony, and deep down inside they still wish they could be better. It also helps clear up the confusion that arises from some songs clearly being set in New York City while the majority seem logically set in LA. Then again he literally did leave his manager, marry Kathleen Brennan, move to New York City, and publish this album all in 1980 (not sure in which order though), so it's hard to separate the autobiography from the audio output in this case. 

Anywho, freakin' awesome album, no wonder it's currently worth 3 times what i paid for it out on the streets. Check out Heartattack and Vine, i think you'll be pleasantly surprised how good it actually is.

Chapter 10