Tom Waits - Rain Dogs (180 Gram Vinyl)

Tom Waits - Rain Dogs (180 Gram Vinyl)

Noted as Tom Waits’ most critically acclaimed album, Rain Dogs follows the new musical path Waits had taken with Swordfishtrombones. Considered the middle of a de facto trilogy with Swordfishtrombones and Franks Wild Years, Rain Dogs is the first of Waits’ albums to be written in New York, in a Lower Manhattan basement. A 53-minute, 19-track monster, Rain Dogs is a kind of mutant, late 20th century musical “Canterbury Tales” with a shape-shifting band. There are banjos and marimbas and bowed saw and parade drum and howling horns (and Keith Richards and Marc Ribot) on this rollicking, rough-hewn opus—and Waits, using his voice in increasingly weird-and-wild ways. The songs are stories, sagas, laments, breakdowns, character studies, comedies and cabaret numbers. There’s the aching “Hang Down Your Head,” and the moving anthem, “Downtown Train,” which was covered by Patti Smith and Rod Stewart.

Waits coined the term, “rain dog,” a reference to dogs who lose their way when touchstone scents are washed away in storms. Among the lost dogs on the album: gruff, wandering merchant marines (“Singapore”), an accordion player in a slaughterhouse (“Cemetery Polka”), a “jockey full of bourbon” (also the song title), an abandoned, withdrawn woman (“Time”), a “gun street girl,” the old drunks and hustlers of Union Square, and even Waits, himself: Aboard a shipwreck train / Give my umbrella to the Rain Dogs / For I am a Rain Dog, too. . .

Originally released in 1985 on Island Records, the album is newly remastered for the first time ever from the original ½” flat master tape and personally overseen by Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan. Mastered by Chris Bellman at Bernie Grundman Mastering under the guidance of Waits’ longtime audio engineer, Karl Derfler. The album packaging has also been restored. Rain Dogs includes tracks such as “Downtown Train,” “Clap Hands” and “Jockey Full Of Bourbon.” Available on 180g black vinyl.

Title: Rain Dogs
Artist: Tom Waits
Format: LP
Release Date: 9/22/2023
Label: Island
UPC: 602448898531
Genre: Rock

Track List:

A1        Singapore
A2        Clap Hands
A3        Cementary Polka
A4        Jockey Full Of Bourbon
A5        Tango Till They're Sore
A6        Big Black Mariah
A7        Diamonds & Gold
A8        Hang Down Your Head
A9        Time

B1        Rain Dogs
B2        Midtown
B3        9th & Hennepin
B4        Gun Street Girl
B5        Union Square
B6        Blind Love
B7        Walking Spanish
B8        Downtown Train
B9        Bride Of Rain Dog
B10      Anywhere I Lay My Head