Waits, Tom Rain Dogs LP Vinyl

Limited 180gm vinyl LP pressing. Digitally remastered edition. 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.

1. Singapore 2. Clap Hands 3. Cemetery Polka 4. Jockey Full of Bourbon 5. Tango Till They're Sore 6. Big Black Mariah 7. Diamonds and Gold 8. Hang Down Your Head 9. Time 10. Rain Dogs 11. Midtown 12. 9th ; Hennepin 13. Gun Street Girl 14. Union Square 15. Blind Love 16. Walking Spanish 17. Downtown Train 18. Bride of Rain Dog 19. Anywhere I Lay My Head