Tom Waits

"Tell It to Me"


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Published: Nov 21, 2006

It may have taken three CDs to do it (Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards) but Tom Waits has broken through the chains of a decade sounding like Captain Beefheart's younger brother. Don't get me wrong. If I had to find 10 heroes, Waits'd be two of them. But not since Swordfishtrombones has he found or made old and new music so texturally refined and delicate as he has in this collection of rarities and recently recorded tracks. "Tell It to Me," a shamefully simple and sentimental countryish ballad, sticks out the most. "They say you're seeing someone/ You're wearing his ring/ They say you laughed when you heard my name." He's at his smoky lowest here — dazed by a woman whose daughter has his eyes, daunted by the prospects of another man finding pride in the kid and making the nuclear family last like Tom never could. Humming to the strains of Bobby Black's heartbreaking steel guitar yawn, Waits only wants the truth of the matter. And he asks for it as elegantly as he ever has.