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The Heart of Saturday Night

Tom Waits - The Heart of Saturday Night Audio CD

A fair review of the Tom Waits "The Heart of Saturday Night" 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: The Heart of Saturday Night
Rating:

Release Date: 1990-10-25
Media: Audio CD

Tracks: 1: New Coat of Paint 2: San Diego Serenade 3: Semi Suite 4: Shiver Me Timbers 5: Diamonds on My Windshield 6: (Looking For) The Heart of Saturday Night 7: Fumblin' With the Blues 8: Please Call Me, Baby 9: Depot, Depot 10: Drunk on the Moon 11: Ghosts of Saturday Night (After Hours at Napoleone's Pizza House)

Loooking Hard For The Heart Of Saturday Night

The inner lives of the denizens of that late night diner in the famous painting by the American realist artist Edward Hopper, "Nighthawks" (1942). This 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.

The Heart Of Saturday Night, Tom Waits, Electra/ Asylum Records, 1974

This is early Waits and a place where I caught up with his song of longing, searching and just plain "screwing around". Jerry Jeff Walker's cover of his classic song of longing, "The Heart Of Saturday Night" got me onto Brother Waits back in the days. Back that up with "The Ghosts of Saturday Night" here and you have the beginnings of a "beautiful" friendship.
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Find a spot

Its honest and pure. If you cant find a spot in your collection for this
disc - you may as well start collecting stamps. Its music and story telling in
its simple and true form.
When you are ready to listen. . . put this on.

this album is brilliant
this by far is my favourite tw album so far. this is not the first tw album i buy (that was frank's wild years). i like his voice better on this than the gravelly voice he uses on later albums ( i am not always in the mood to hear the later stuff) i love this record from cover to cover. all killer, no filler and the perfect intro to tom waits.

4.5 Stars- A nocturne classic
I'll knock it up a letter grade because it's about one of my favorite subjects: The night. The Heart Of Saturday Night gets a curve. Specifically, it's a grizzled ode to wakeful Americana, to nights spent unblinking among seedy bars, 24 hour diners, and twisting city streets. It's like Edward Hooper's Nighthawks set to music, a work of art too spooked and lonely to sleep. It's an aesthetic that brims with desolation, catharsis, bitterness, and humor. It's artful and poetic, and it's also hauntingly sad.

If it hadn't encapsulated that image so perfectly, this album would have received a paltry three and a half stars. It would've lost that star for its occasional bursts of melodrama, for its smattering of imperfect songs ("Shiver Me Timbers" is weighed down by cliches, and "(Looking For) The Heart Of Saturday Night" is far too hammy), for the fact that occasionally tries waaaay too hard. But these transgressions can be halfway forgiven thanks to the layers of smoke and booze and sourness that billow out of your speakers every time you play it.

Plus, no album with "New Coat Of Paint," "San Diego Serenade," "Semi Suite," and some of "Drunk On The Moon" deserves to be slighted. Throw in two spectacular hipster beat poetry readings ("Diamonds On My Windshield" and "The Ghosts Of Saturday Night (After Hours At Napoleone's Pizza House)") and you've got yourself a faded-soul classic.

Hug! How, wait baby don't hit me it's just Tom Waits!!!
and I were pulling up to our mailbox along an old country road. Our saga begins as the Mrs. We had both just ended a day of hittin da malls and doing the baby shopping thing. My mother in law opens our wanna be 1920's farm house mail box and pulls a yellow package from within. My wife's eyes read my name across the front and then those words pierced from her lips, "MARC ***** YOU BETTER NOT HAVE BOUGHTEN ANYTHING FROM AMAZON, WE JUST INVESTED 14 THOUSAND DOLLARS IN AN HVAC SYSTEM FOR OUR HOUSE!!!!" My puzzled look said it all. Then I said those famous words, "I don't know what this is. " Ah, but that's when I noticed the precision of the handwriting. It was detail oriented, precise, and clearly legible. I only know one person with that handwriting!!!

I opened the package and a letter was attached to this CD.

(BRER MARC,
A Pretty "Bluesy" album, and probably one of my top 10 or top 12 from any genre. Hope you enjoy it too. BRO!

Postscript: Please do not send anything in return. If you do, I will regret having sent this. I want less stuff, not more!!!)

I immediately put this CD in knowing my friends excellent taste in music. Tom's voice is soothing over these bluesy, rhythmic, yet beautiful songs. Nope, not a bad one in the bunch!!! San Diego Serenade helped put my mind at peace and relax my exhausted body. My other favorites are: New Coat Of Pain, The Heart Of Saturday Night, and Drunk On The Moon. This is a can't miss collection of songs for any blues fan, and was worth the near death experience I almost received in the process. Having only listened to it for the first time I can guarantee any potential new listener that you have been missing out on a quality album if you haven't listened to this. This CD/Album should be viewed as a blues classic PERIOD!!! If you don't own this quickly run out and purchase it. I might even want this CD played in my memory at my funeral. It seems fitting since I already almost died for it.

Bottom Line: A can't miss CD, 5 plus stars.

Postscript: Thank You my warm hearted friend for sharing this musically genius compilation of songs written and performed by Tom Wait. The Heart of Satturday Night is as you said in the top 10 to 12 of any genre. I am very thankful for this most excellent gift. I appreciate it more than you know. I will always remember you when I hear these tunes, and I'm especially thankful that unlike Tom's line in "Diamonds on my windshield" my little fanny will be nice and warm in the comfort and safety of my bed tonight, and not "colder than a well diggers a**. "

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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.