Tom Waits – Swordfishtrombones (1983)

December 19, 2020

Quite possibly the perfect record to sit in an old city centre pub with, drinking strong ale and watching the revellers go about their business. Truly I suppose, Tom Waits’ music is probably more suited to smashing back an Old Fashioned in a dusty, smoky hole of a piano bar, but I’ll work with what I’ve got here in little ol’ Wales.

Whilst not as macabre or as experimental as later offerings, records like Swordfishtrombones are still a cerebral listen, taking elements of many classic genres of music and twisting them into a strange and drunken world, which we are viewing through a broken lense. By the end of play, I’m strangley craving a packet of cigarettes.