Saturday love for Swordfishtrombones

Sometimes there really needs to be a good excuse to wax lyrical about an album that first appeared over twenty-five years ago. You know the drill – anniversary reissues, Q-style ‘best ever’ lists, Don’t Look Back-style one album gigs. Then there are those records that don’t really require an excuse beyond just wanting to revisit a stone-cold classic. The fact that almost the whole of Tom Waits’ back catalogue effortlessly fits into that category is probably reason enough to name him as one of the finest, and most unique, artists of the last few decades. But the term ‘classic’ is loaded in itself, carrying the implication of a dusty museum artefact, something to be admired rather than loved – certainly not an accusation anyone could level at any of Waits’ material, which even twenty or thirty years down the line still feels gritty, dirty, alive.



Swordfishtrombones marked a turning point in Waits’ sound, marking the start of his Frank’s Wild Years trilogy of records (completed by the heartstoppingly brilliant duo of Rain Dogs and Frank’s Wild Years) and heralding the arrival of a stripped down, abstract musical edge to match the ambiguous intent and tortured personae of his many protagonists. It’s often cited as a difficult album, but what is most striking about listening to Swordfishtrombones is how easy it is to love, despite its harshly contrasting elements and raw, bleeding-hearted emotion. Every aspect fits comfortably into place, somehow smoothly switching between the piano balladry that made his name, gruff spoken-word and something new entirely – the rough, disjointed barroom brawls of ‘Underground’ and ‘16 Shells From A Thirty-Ought-Six’. Not a second is wasted - ‘Shore Leave’ manages to create a wholly believable world in only four minutes, one in which a nameless soldier pines for home as he wonders the humid alleyways of some godforsaken wartime Asian port.



It’s testament to the strength of his subsequent albums that Swordfishtrombones feels like only one of many fantastic records – in the hands of lesser artists than Waits, it would have been a never-bettered career high. As far as today goes, it's proper whiskey-soaked Saturday hangover listening.