I might have said that Nighthawks of the Diner would be my go to record to show the jazzier side of the Waits’ oeuvre, but if there is a record that is exemplary of his output throughout the seventies, it would be Small Change. Part of that reason is that it is aware of its own archetype-ness. Nighthawks at the Diner showed how aware Waits was of the setting and atmosphere of his music, but it is here that he takes his “character” of the bar hopping beatnik scamp and takes it to a logical, alcohol soaked conclusion, amplifying both the ultimate tragedy and its ultimate absurdity.
It’s also here that iconic voice – that of both drinking whisky and gargling the bottle – manifests itself in a truly dirty way. I had to go back and check whether his voice had previously been this rough, and I would that between his previous two records and then the next two there is already a noticeable difference and, whether an affectation or the result of many kinds of chemical dependency, has a big result on how we perceive Tom’s tales.
Of course if there is one major con to this record it is that it put the album’s epic conclusion at the beginning. “Tom Traubert Blues” is an anthemic classic, one that takes Waits’ penchant for manipulating old musical piece – this time “Waltzing Matilda” – and so weaves it into the narrative of a man (or many a man) destroyed by both larger foreign forces and their own self destructive tendencies. It is sad without being sentimental, with some of the greatest lyrics of his career (“No, I don’t want your sympathy, the fugitives say/ That the streets aren’t for dreaming now” being a particular heart-churner for me) and Jerry Yester returning to do similar orchestral backing to songs from Closing Time makes that final push to the already great, iconic tune that makes it the epic that it is.
With the second song “Step Right Up” Waits returns to a jazzier edge. But the bitterly funny lyrics that accompanies this show of sassy saxes and propulsive drums show not only his disdain for advertising persona and slogans, whose influence he would make even more overt on the next record, but his ability to be the gatekeeper for this cavalcade of the insane that would make up so much of his later, experimental work and persona. “Jitterbug Boy” returns to this debauched drunk persona, but does it alone in the midst of a quiet singular piano ballad. He shows his influence in “got drunk with Louis Armstrong”, but does it in the form of the man at the bar who spends every day their boasting about past accomplishments that might not even be true, but the fact they are true to him are what makes it sad.
“I Wish I was In New Orleans (in the Ninth Ward)” brings back the orchestral backing from the album’s intro and jazzier accompanies to detail another tale of nostalgia, although this character is much more confident that they will be back there. Already sloshed, the last song goes all out on bar tale philosophising and nonsense with another incredible highlight of Small Change, “The Piano Has Been Drinking.” This fantastic piano song sees Waits explore the brighter end of his instrument whilst spitting out some nonsensical and highly humorous sentences, favourite lines including the piano tuner having an hearing aid (which is particularly funny as Waits occasionally and intentionally struggles to keep in tune) and that “you can’t find your waitress with a Geiger counter”.
Side Two opener “Invitation to Blues” certainly lives up to the title with a depressing encounter trying to woo a women that is a situation that is probably wrong for both of them. The atmosphere that the saxophones and strings give the situation helps to accentuate the situation in the same way that soundtrack of film noirs helped to highlight the dangers of the femme fatale. By contrast “Pasties And a G-String” only has Shelly Manne’s expert drum skills to accompany another selection of Tom’s funniest and bluest lyrics, including “harder than Chinese algebra” being “so good, make a dead man come” and a selection of funny, drunken scat sounds. The abrupt and sparse nature of this track shows just how much Small Change is a transitioning point between Waits’ later experimental work, and the dive-bar antics of these Asylum days.
This more upbeat insanity somewhat helps to set the blow for “Bad Liver and a Broken Heart,” for my money one of the ultimate sad bar tunes of just how alcoholism effects both the body and the home (“And this epitaph is the aftermath, yeah I choose my path, hey, come on, Kath”). It would be almost unbearably sad if it wasn’t for Waits not himself highlighting this situation in the song itself – “I got me a bottle and a dream, it’s so maudlin it seems” – and some of the best piano playing by Waits on the entire album.
The next two tracks return to the world inhabited in Nighthawks of the Diner with two spoken word jazz pieces. The first, “The One That Got Away” has a saxophone that is almost as gruff as Waits’ voice itself, with another story about unrequited lust, though this time told from a third person point of view. Until the final line that is, where Waits puts his own “I” into the story, showing just how inseparable he is from tales of miscreants even when telling stories of other people. This is also apparent in the second spoken piece, the title track, which like “Pasties And a G-String” also shows a sparse instrumentation by having only Lew Tabackin’s sax back the piece. Of the two pieces “Small Change” is probably my favourite, if only because of the significance of the subheading – “Got Rained on by His Own .38” – through repetition showing the perpetual circle of crime begetting crime and violence begetting violence.
Compared to how my depressing ass would want to end the record, Small Change ends with a somewhat smaller tragedy as opposed to the rest of the album in “I Can’t Wait to Get Off Work (To See My Baby On Montgomery Avenue)”. This smaller and happier sounding tune (in context) tells the tale off someone unable to see their date due to the harshness of their job, and although filled with the melancholy and perpetual to be found throughout the album, seems like a very low key note to end things on. But then again, as the whole of Small Change has shown us, tragedy is all relative.
Small Change is the jewel of the Asylum years, the true Rosetta Stone between his days in the bars and his days in the carnivals. It also began the Tom Waits trend of picking one general mood and ideal and sticking letting it colour the entire record. Foreign Affairs would demonstrate this further…
Tom Waits Album Rankings
- Small Change
- The Heart of Saturday Night
- Nighthawks at the Diner
- Closing Time