Waltzing Matilda

And now, Small Change by Tom Waits. Via Mr. Burns:

He is my favourite Writer. Beautiful songs. I love "Closing Time" & "The Heart of Saturday Night" from his earlier work as well, and "Frank's Wild Years" & "Mule Variations" from the second half of his career.
But "Small Change" is kind of a turning point into the real bar-room character he was playing & living in that period.
It's got all the classic Waitsisms... ballads, blues & jazz, humour, young drunkenness.



My first experience with Tom Waits was last year with Swordfishtrombone. That album hit me harder then probably anything I've listened to recent years. I remember my jaw literally dropping and I was practically squeeling in my car listening to Tom Waits shout and sing and be a maniac. It completely changed the way I thought about music. I've always put a lot of limits on myself and what I thought music should and shouldn't be. I never listened to jazz because I didn't understand it. I never learned chords beyond major and minor because I didn't see the use. Swordfishtrombone changed all that. If you wanna be original without sounding like a train wreck, I've learned you gotta do 3 things. Be brave, know your shit, and don't give an eff what other people think.

After Swordfishtrombone, I went down to the now defunct Megatunes and lo and behold they had Tom Waits albums on for 5 bucks! That store was always bad for my wallet. But I didn't get this one. Now, I'm not sure if this was Sean's favorite Tom Waits album, but I'm pretty sure it was his favorite Tom Waits album that I didn't already own. And I think it's safe to say that my music collection would never have been complete without Small Change.

I haven't had the chance to listen to this one as much as I would have liked to before writing about it. The material alone is worth more than a week's worth of listening. Plus the stupid CD won't play in my car and that's where I do all my heavy listening! Bah, here goes nothing!

It starts off with 'Tom Traubert's Blues'. Stunning is about as good of a word I can come up with to describe this song and pretty much all of Small Change. I'm a fan of almost every style Tom Waits uses, but I'm such a sucker for melancholy piano ballads and I was shocked and delighted that the majority of the songs on the album were in this style. I think my only problem is that when listening to the album as a whole, I have a tendency to skip past the snappier songs (ie. 'Step Right Up' and title track 'Small Change) just to get to the dreamy stories and piano. Which isn't really fair, because I like those songs too. On random I'd never skip 'em. But squished between 'Tom Traubert's Blues' and 'Jitterbug Boy'? They don't really stand a chance.

Titles Are Hard

Here we go again.

To start off the new and improved Madly Beckons we have the wonderful and talented and bad diner breakfast lovin' Sean Burns! Sean is a musician based in Toronto, but more on him later.

February is here and it's actually been kinda nice this week. Except for Tuesday. Tuesday not so much.

I spent the night before in Airdrie visiting with my mom and grandma. I left early for work that morning at 7:20, and half an hour later I realized I was going to be spending a really long time sitting in my car. The Deerfoot was backed up to to Stoney Trail and according to 66CFR it was bumper to bumper all the way to Peigan (my exit). An hour into my commute I started foraging my back seat, looking for something edible. Instead I found my little HMV bag with two new cd's in it. And lo and behold it was February 1st! Which meant I could finally start listening to them! My options were either Bob Dylan or Tom Waits. Without hesitation I cracked open the Waits album and threw it in the console. And waited. And watched it fail. Made a few more attempts to get the player to read the cd, but it was no use. All I was left with was Bob Dylan. Highway 61 Revisited.



I was worried.

I like Bob Dylan, I really do. But I only have a 3 disc "best of" of his, and it something I can only take in small doses. I had estimated that I had at least another half hour in traffic (it ended up being another hour), and I was concerned about how an entire album of this dude would effect my already foul mood. I put the cd in.

AND IT WAS AWESOME. No one could have ever convinced me that I would love an entire album of Bob Dylan's this much. It's the only thing I've listened to all week.

Highway 61 starts off with 'Like a Rolling Stone', Bob Dylan staple. And then right into 'Tombstone Blues' and I just love this line:

The geometry of innocent flesh on the bone

And it just keeps being awesome. 'Balled of a Thin Man' kinda slows things down in the middle, but it is groovy and it makes me wanna take up smoking. And start a bring back smoking in bars campaign.

I can't even complain about the only song I don't like, 'Queen Jane Approximately'. I listened to it once and that's all I needed, I skip it every time now. But having such strong feelings about a song pleases me! You see, I'm an easy sell. There is very little media that I'm not a little entertained by, and sometimes that's kind of boring. So for me to never want to hear a song again... big deal! I don't think the song is a miss, I just kinda hate it. The harmonica made me want to throw myself outta the vehicle on the highway. Except I was only going 5 kms/hr so that wasn't going to do much damage. But yes. Lukewarm is boring. And there was nothing lukewarm for me about this album.

WOO!

Normally I'll post the Recommender's thoughts before I start, but I felt like I needed to save Burnzy's comments till the end here for my story to work. Do I need to explain these things to you? Probably not.

From the man himself:

"Revolutionary. His first full album with a backing band.
Of course everybody has heard "Like A Rolling Stone", but the real reality and gravity of how heavy the song is, and was at the time it was released, is nothing short of astounding.
It rocks hard and was almost like a fuck-you to a lot of people that wanted him to stay solo like the "old Dylan"... door opening, life-changing Album."