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.