Tom Waits - Rain Dogs

ORIGINATION Rain Dogs
RECORDED IN 1985
LAST LISTENED TO yesterday
RATING ★★★★★

Few things in life as quite as fine as Tom Waits during his rebirth years of the mid-eighties. Rain Dogs was Waits' ninth album and the second in his move away from the lounge-style sound he was originally known for. The album is said to be about the urban dispossessed, which is seen by some as Waits straying into territory marked out in literature by Charles Bukowski. Whatever the truth of that assertion, the title track here does have something of that flavour to it, both in its impenetrably picturesque, booze-soaked lyrics and the strange thrift-store orchestra. It is a combination that Waits has been working in ever since, in his own unique way, and it is the reason why he has become such a worshipped cult figure.