Credit: Found On Internet

Tom Waits is without doubt in my opinion the greatest living songwriter alive today. Find me someone else that turns out the amount of original vocal lines that are classics in the making, someone who penned 'you can say what you like about mankind but there is nothing kind about man'. The experiments with sounds and noise that Tom and Kathleen continue to put together with increasing ability on each album seem to defy the logic composed generation of indie rock and factory made hip-hop.

This new album Orphans from Tom Waits and Kathleen Breenan is a triple CD mixing thirty odd new songs with old songs, one offs and rare odds and sods. Divided into three moods: Brawlers, Bawlers and Bastards.

Picking out some favourites: Lie to Me – The opener is Rockabilly rumble, with a Dead Elvis in tow this upbeat Diner joint tune, 2:19 a scuzzy soulful track about the railroad. Syncapation and and a swing.  Lucinda – on the cover it mentions a phrase ‘Full Throated Juke Joint Stomp’ this is the archetypal modern Waits song. a chain gang feel he never should of sold your soul to that woman.

Road to Peace: A political song about Isareli Palestine conflict? While I commend a bit of standing up and shouting. It is odd hearing about Waits singing about something real. Stripped of this beatnick western outlaw fantasy is uncomfortable. As is the conflict for the entire world. The vocal line doesn’t have the growl of the others to be honest. Maybe this would be good to hear a whole album as this song doesn’t do the topic the seething justice it needs.

It is big, there is a lot of it, and a day in still haven’t been able to take it all in yet.
If you have Bloody Money, Alice, Mule Variations, Real Gone, The Black Rider there are a number similar tracks or the same tracks with different vocals. The songs all seem to feel in different states of construction and this seems to somewhat deconstructs Waits and Breenan’s songwriting method. This is great to listen to, but it chips away at the mystique of Tom Waits and also at the coherency of being ‘an album’ in a traditional sense. Almost an anthology but with songs you haven’t heard.