Main menu
Fretplay home Submit tabs

Tom Waits
Tom Waits tabs Tom Waits discography

Channels
Guitar channel Bass channel Guitar videos Reviews

Message Forum
Guitar forum Bass forum Bands and artists Promote your band Recent discussions All categories

Fretplay.com

Tom Waits guitar tabs

CD reviews

Franks Wild Years

Tom Waits - Franks Wild Years Audio CD

A fair review of the Tom Waits "Franks Wild Years" Audio CD. Please note that the below review is the views of the authors, and authors only. You can get a complete list of all Tom Waits reviews here, or go back to the Tom Waits tabs.

Band: Tom Waits
Title: Franks Wild Years
Rating:

Release Date: 1990-06-15
Media: Audio CD

Tracks: 1: Hang on St. Christopher 2: Straight to the Top [Rhumba][Version] 3: Blow Wind Blow 4: Temptation 5: Innocent When You Dream [Barroom][Version] 6: I'll Be Gone 7: Yesterday Is Here 8: Please Wake Me Up 9: Franks Theme 10: More Than Rain 11: Way Down in the Hole 12: Straight to the Top [Vegas][Version] 13: I'll Take New York 14: Telephone Call From Istanbul 15: Cold Cold Ground 16: Train Song 17: Innocent When You Dream [78][Version]

Yes, You Are Innocent When You Dream

The inner lives of the denizens of that late night diner in the famous painting by the American realist artist Edward Hopper, "Nighthawks" (1942). The comments posted here are also being used to comment on other Tom Waits albums. The scorching literary sketches of the rich and famous and the skid row bums provided by the late "Gonzo" journalist Doctor Hunter Thompson, accompanied by the renderings of the artist Ralph Steadman. The jingle-jangle high side lyrics of the legendary folk musician Bob Dylan of the "Blood On The Tracks" period. The reach into the far side of the part of the psyche exhibited by those down at the base of American society in an earlier period by the novelist Nelson Algren in "Walk On The Wild Side". And that same reach later by the man of the "mean" Los Angeles streets, Charles Bukowski. Wrap them all up in a whiskey-soaked, cigarette-scarred, gravelly, rasping voice and you have the idiosyncratic musician Tom Waits. Placed in that same company as above? Yes, by all means. Not a bad place to be, right?

Although I have been listening to the music of one Tom Waits for decades, every since I heard Jerry Jeff Walker do a cover of his classic song of loneliness, longing and reaching for the elusive promise of Saturday night dreams in "Looking For The Heart Of Saturday Night", I am not familiar with his biography. All I know is that aside from his own far-reaching musical endeavors, as expressed in numerous albums over the years, he has acted in some motion pictures, most notably as a skid row philosopher of sorts in the movie version of William Kennedy's "Ironweed" (a natural, right?) and has provided the soundtrack music to many movies, most notably the Al Pacino-starring "Sea Of Love". That Waits soundtrack version of the late 1950's, early 1960's classic teenage anthem to longing and love is just the right example of what Brother Waits means musically to this reviewer. Taking that simple song of teenage longing, Waits' husky-voiced rendition reaches back and turns it into something almost primordial, something that goes back beyond time to our first understandings that we are `alone' in the universe. Enough said.

But so much for all of that because what I really want to mention is the "Waits effect". Every once in a while I `need' to listen to words and sounds that express the dark, misbegotten side of the human experience. You know, sagas of Gun Street girls, guys talking "Spanish in the halls', people lost out there on the edge of society and the like. Is there anyone today who can musically put it better? If you need to hear about hope, dope, the rope. Wine, women and song or no wine, no women or no song. About whiskey-caked barroom floors, floozies, boozies, flotsam, jetsam, stale motel rooms, cigarette-infested hotels, wrong gees, jokers, smokers and ten-cent croakers. Drifters, grifters, no good midnight sifters. Life on the fast lane, nowhere lane, some back street alley, perhaps, out in the valley. This, my friends is you address. Listen up. Professor Waits is at the lectern.

Frank's Wild Years, Tom Waits

This one is filled with some very experimental works like "Straight To The Top"and Frank's Theme" More os than some of his other works this is a concept album, and it works. The high here are the two versions of "Innocent When You Dream". Know this the song is one of the great modern love songs, and his raspy-voiced renditions showcase that notion. Forget Cole Porter, Forget Irving Berlin. Hell, Forget Frank Sinatra. This is what the love story is all about down at the base of society without the fluff. Kudos, Tom.

.

My First...

I bought it for $20 @ Musicland for no particular reason other than the advice of a hipster cashierette that I wanted to bed. "Franks Wild Years" was my first Tom Waits album.

I plugged the tape into my car and was a fan within 50 seconds.

I dunno, you either get it or you do not. I know that I laughed like a mo-fo as the tape stated to unreel and cried like a bitch for the rest. . .

Waits writes beautiful music. His ruined voice might obscure the pungency of his intent, but the advanced astringent economy of his delivery makes due for just aout every f'n thing.

An Ode to Frank's Wild Years
At its height and glory along a one block stretch you could find three shops equidistant from each other. Before Blockbuster wiped them out, there were all kinds of small video stores you could rent from in Simi Valley. My favorite was a mom and pop video store in a strip mall right next to the Albertsons called "the video shop", and their catch was that a person could rent five movies for five dollars for five nights. Due to the luxurious demands of community college, I blazed through all my choices in two or three nights. I don't even remember most of the movies I rented, they just blew by. Sometimes a movie like Night Flyer or TapeHeads will start playing on cable and I'd say, "oh yeah, I saw that! I rented that from the shop!"

One of the reasons for so many return visits was the lady behind the counter. Her hair was dark red and arched up in what could be described as a poodle's pony tail. In hindsight she was probably in her early thirties, but I didn't have that kind of eye to judge yet. Greedy little assumptions assured me she was in her mid twenties with only a trace of husky, which is as skinny as you are going to get if you are a woman working in my hometown. Petit and slender are for trophy wives.

We would talk about show business. I read books on becoming an actor as a kind of fantastical wish fulfillment, and she wanted to work as an administrative assistant in a movie studio. Past that it was the usual video store shop talk. Talking about the guy who wants a refund on porn he rented, or praising clerks while mallrats plays on a tv screen behind the counter.

Deep down, all there were was wishes in a slow, rolling illusion for her to look at me like she wanted me, and then touch my hand in understanding. To go in that little bathroom in the corridor that lead into the alley and kiss, grab, knee, rub, hold, elbow, sweep, cheek, slide in that tiny little room like it meant something more.

As Blockbuster slid closer and closer to perfecting its hold on the video rental market, mom and pop video stores started to close all around Simi. First Video Super Store, which was below a now defunct Fuddruckers. Then the Shop went next, followed by Music Plus and finally just this last year, The Wherehouse. I remember I didn't buy anything, or pillage, I just let it go. My only act of surrender was a Variety magazine to give to the lady behind the counter, "and help her on her way". It just stayed in the back of my trunk, because she wasn't there anymore. I ran into her about a year later in a local coffee shop called "Dr Conkey's". She was there with a fierce looking construction worker who drove a supe'd up high and tall pickup truck. We didn't speak.

The strangest of mementos came from that shop. The movie that stuck with me the most was Smoke staring Harvey Keitel and William Hurt. An ensemble piece about the relationships revolving around a cigar shop in Brooklyn, it is a very eccentric, erratic work and one of the first screenplays by Paul Auster. I finally found a DVD in a Virgin superstore in San Francisco, lost it, and bought another copy online.

A copy is kept for sentimental reasons. Over the credits the film reenacts a short story of Paul Auster, "Augie's Christmas Story". The movement is a montage in black and white, with Tom Waits' "You're innocent when you dream" playing underneath. That was the very first time I heard a Tom Waits song. I thought "Who is this? I have never heard anything like this in my entire life!" When Christmas came around I got beautiful maladies, best of Tom Waits :Island years, which became one of the top three in my rotation for that year along with Enema of the State by blink-182 and 1965 by the Afghan Whigs.

A little while rolled along and I realized I must dig deeper. The Black Rider was too dark and disjointed. Rain Dogs seemed inevitable and didn't give me the thrill of the chase. But Frank's Wild Years, had my song, that settled it. The sampling of beautiful maladies was no preparation for the awesome power of the album, which I received (along with Rain Dogs). That Album blew me away. It is one of the few I can listen to all the way through without skipping or complaint. More jazzy, upbeat and concentrated than his other works, each song pops on its own and adds to the overall experience with an album crescendo in the last three songs of "cold, cold, ground", "train song", and another reprise of "you're innocent when you dream". This album is a Bebop Americana wet dream.

My favorite song is "train song", which could be described as ebullient tragedy, or a sad celebration. A melancholic Frank sings of the train that is coming to take him back to where he came from, back home. After he finishes singing the tune picks up to Dixieland swing sending him off. It made such an impression on me that I choose the song to perform a modern dance piece for an Intro to Modern Dance class. Mercifully, these performances are very rare, and if it weren't for my joy of the song holding me up saying "yeah, this is sane! I look great, and not at all undignified!" it would have been a train wreck.

Time marched on to other CDs and artists grabbing for my attention. My CD collection grew and expanded as I rolled along, but from time to time Frank was pulled out to anchor myself. The piles of CDs finally surpassed the 600 CD blue cabinet in my room and out onto the floor. Then one day I moved and it took about 7 boxes of various shapes to crate all the CDs from my parent's home in Moorpark to my room for rent in Westlake Village.

Typing on a cheap plastic cabinet with rollers and desk exempt, I started humming "Hang on St. Christopher". Forgetting the lyrics, the only words mumbled out are about "Forth and Hennepin" forcibly splintered into the rhythm of the song. My body starts kneeling to the floor and crawling on all fours with eyes hunting for the case in one of the post-moving mangled stacks surrounding the light socket closest to the closet. Pulling out Madman across the Water from the boom box and switching, I type and I listen. Jeez, I forgot how good "yesterday is here" is. Somewhere in the beginning of "cold, cold ground", Tom is howling out a "yeahoowww!" and the CD skips then repeats over and over again. It's a pretty scary, fearsome noise that I let repeat for a little while because moments like these are pretty rare.

The CD had this weird splotch on the bottom. The milky cloud wouldn't rinse and just stayed ingrained. The Boom Box wouldn't read past track 15. The disc was done. Placed on a shelf away from the music area and then out to the trash in the morning. I had worn out my first CD, and the happy compliment goes to Tom Waits. What kind of salute do you give this? A nod of the head in recognition and a smile in thanks for the work that went into making a piece of music that meant so much to me. .

Should have Wait(ed)
I started with Closing Time and absolutely love it, but Frank's Wild Years is one of the WORST cds I have ever purchased. As I have surpassed 700 cds in my library, I thought it was time to add some Tom Waits. No soul, hokey tunes, not something I like at all. Perhaps Waits fans would like this but, as a Waits novice, I had to give this a second chance and I dislike it even more than when I first listened. This cd will go into my recycle pile. No camparison to Closing Time, absolutely none.

Dark and Humorous, Classic Waits
Franks Wild Years is another entry in this fine tradition. A Tom Waits album is the aural equivalent of walking down a dark twisty path with a cantankerous old uncle who mixes Old Testament wisdom with dirty jokes.
As you may already know, this album is taken from an opera that Tom and Kathleen wrote. If you are interested in further explorations of this project, check out Big Time - both the album and the movie (available only on VHS). The studio version of Down in the Hole is great, but the live version is truly amazing and even hilarious. Check it out!.

You can see a complete list of all Tom Waits discography, or go back to the Tom Waits tabs. There is also a good guide on how to read guitar tabs here.