I guess it’s no longer possible to avoid this. 1993 began a trio of albums that made me really strain to keep liking Waits. I’m not alone: many people consider this his weakest period. Perhaps the stress of bringing out two albums in the same year, on the same month, on the same fu
cking
day told on him, and although that was 2002 I believe the rot, as it were, set in here at the end of ‘93. Mind you, there was a bright spot just before the millennium closed, but more of that later. Right now it’s time to gird my loins, take a deep breath and dive into what is unquestionably my least favourite of any Tom Waits albums.
The Black Rider --- 1993
Maybe it’s something to do with plays.
Franks wild years was, as I have already related, the first Waits album I wasn’t head over heels in love with, and that was based on a play. So too is this, and the two I mentioned in 2002. It could be coincidence but I wonder. Anyway I found this album extremely inaccessible when I first heard it, but to be fair I only remember listening to it once, so maybe time will have softened my attitude towards it. Maybe I’ll get it. Or not.
Based on the play of the same name written by William S. Burroughs, the album is the soundtrack to the life of a man who chooses to make a pact with the Devil but is outwitted by him in the end, as are all mortals, and he ends up going mad. You can check out the full story here
The Black Rider - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia if you wish. It’s another long album, with twenty tracks in all, though some are quite short, a few just over one minute. Interestingly, after her almost total collaboration with him on
Bone machine, Kathleen Brennan is conspicuously absent from the songwriting here.
We open on “Lucky day overture”, Waits bellowing as a carnival barker against a slow brass waltz background, quite FWY in theme. No singing at all; Waits shouts the vocal completely with a wild abandon I haven’t heard since “Going out west", and the old-style carnival atmosphere is reinforced by his use of a calliope, then we’re into the title track, which has Waits sound like a German or something (not surprisingly: this is based on a German folk tale after all) against a
Rain dogs style rhythm driven mostly on organ. Some of Waits’s old faithful return for this album, such as Joe Gore, Ralph Carney and here, Greg Cohen who does a superb viola. “November” opens in saw and accordion, then we hear for the first time on this album the voice we all know so well, dark broken and morose as the accordion plays out its sad tale. Some really great banjo from Waits adds to the feel here, as does the saw, which sounds like the whistling moan of a soul haunting the song.
“Just the right bullets” staggers along on a threatening, compelling melody as Pegleg, the Devil makes his entrance and the bargain is sealed, as is the hero’s fate, did he but know it. Suddenly it all goes into overdrive with a fast western-style theme, galloping along in a “Ghost riders in the sky” sort of idea till it slows back again with echoes of
Franks wild years then speeds up for the frenetic conclusion. A spooky chamberlin and Doug Neely returning on the saw colours “Black box theme”, the first instrumental (if you don’t count the opener, which had plenty of vocals if not singing), cello, bassoon, French horn and banjo all adding to the weirdness. A slow, haunting little piece, perhaps underlying the pact just agreed, then on of the few covers Waits ever did comes in the shape of a totally out-there version of “Tain’t no sin”; it’s really quite unsettling. No percussion at all, just clarinet and a synth; marimba is mentioned but I don’t hear it.
“Flash pan hunter/intro” is another short instrumental with very much a stately, funereal sound, contrabassoon and clarinet merging with the sounds of seagulls overhead, a real dirge, then Waits and Burroughs collaborate on “That’s the way”, with a dark organ motif and an almost spoken vocal from Waits. It runs directly into “The briar and the rose”, whose music reminds me of something off I think
One from the heart, but I can’t quite place it. A slow, ragged ballad, the kind Waits excels at, while “Russian dance” is, well, a Russian dance with Waits’s inimitable touch. It’s good fun but at over three minutes it’s way too long. Another instrumental is next, this being “Gospel train/Orchestra”, which oddly enough does not seem to involve Waits at all, if the credits are to be believed. If so, it may be unique in all of his work.
Kind of reminds me of a slower version of “Bride of rain dog”, bits of “Singapore” mixed in and led on a thumping trombone. I can’t believe Waits didn’t play on this. They must just have missed his credit out. More
Franks Wild Years style for “I’ll shoot the moon”, a Country-flavoured waltzy ballad, quite nice, then there’s another teamup with Burroughs as he writes the lyric for “Flash pan hunter”, more of that spooky saw from Neely and some fine organ from Francis Thumm, with again a sort of crying chant like we heard on FWY. Back to that sort of western/Country rhythm for “Crossroads”, while “Gospel train” is just weird. Look, I know weird is Waits’s middle name, but this is weird. Almost the same musical phrase going all the way through, and I think he’s quoting part of Curtis Mayfield’s “People get ready” in there. Plus there are train whistles. Yeah.
At almost five minutes though it quickly wears out its welcome and after an eighteen-second “interlude” we’re into “Oily night”, which seems not to feature Waits himself either. It’s got the deepest vocal, almost death metal in a way, and surely that has to be Waits? Other than that it’s like someone scraping a paintstripper off a wall or something. Pretty unnerving. Frownland would probably love it. Again it’s way, way too long, but we’re getting near the end now, and I have to say I’m still glad this is the case. Much better though is “Lucky day” which again has the “Frank” vocal and a swaying carnival rhythm, reminds me very much of “Innocent when you dream”. I’d actually pick this as my favourite on the album, though that’s not hard as I pretty much dislike most of it anyway.
It’s just Waits and Greg Cohen to close out the album then, with first the ballad “The last rose of summer” and then a short instrumental, “Carnival”, as our hero ends up in the Devil’s Carnival, having lost his mind after shooting his bride to be. Suitably manic and frenetic, it ends the album more or less as it began, at the fairground, though this time a dark, evil, malevolent one from which there is no escape. Somewhat like this album.
TRACKLISTING
1.Lucky day overture
2.The Black Rider
3.November
4.Just the right bullets
5.Black box theme
6.T’ain’t no sin
7.Flash pan hunter/intro
8.That’s the way
9.The briar and the rose
10.Russian dance
11.Gospel train/Orchestra
12.I’ll shoot the moon
13.Flash pan hunter
14.Crossroads
15.Gospel train
16.Interlude
17.Oily night
18.Lucky day
19.The last rose of summer
20.Carnival
When I first heard this album I really hated it. It began, as I said in the intro, for me anyway a period of nine years over which I would struggle to try to like Waits’s albums but find myself fighting a losing battle. Apart from one bright spot in 1999, when he released “Mule variations”, and I was able to say after six years I had listened to one of his albums I really liked. But that then was followed by two more in quick succession that tested me sorely again.
Perhaps if I was more familiar with the play this is based on I might enjoy it more, get into it more, but even though, listening back to it here, I don’t quite hate it as much as I did, it’s still a very inaccessible album to me and not one I would tend to put on again unless for review purposes. I find it too avant-garde, too experimental, and sadly for me this was the way, mostly, Waits’s music was to go for the foreseeable future. Personally, I regard it as one of his weakest efforts, and even though I can appreciate it a little better now, much of it still annoys me.
Not to mention that I used always to think the track “Black wings” was on it. It’s not: that’s on
Bone machine, so I don’t even have that. So there’s not a lot I can say about this album, other than if you’re I guess a Burroughs fan or a fan of German folktales you may very well enjoy it. I’m not, and I didn’t. I doubt I ever will.