New Coat of Paint
Tom Waits
Tom Waits
Label: Asylum
Released: 1974
In 1974, Tom Waits released his raucous second album, The Heart of Saturday Night. “New Coat of Paint” invites the listener to a night on the town lit by a “bloodshot moon”. His raspy, bluesy voice is a testament to years of drinking and smoking in the shadows of back alley piano bars. Mr. Waits is a jack-of-all-trades with his crass crooner voice, his beat poetry, and his on-screen antics as an actor. Every night is a Saturday night when you play this saucy number.
—James Maher
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March 9th, 2010 at 1:35 pm
This is my favorite Tom Waits album, followed closely by his debut album. A real classic. Terrific songs, a great sound. I followed Waits for quite awhile after this, but, for me at least, every album became less enjoyable. I don’t even listen to anything from the 80s on. I know I’m probably in the minority, but these first two albums are just the best as far as I’m concerned.
March 9th, 2010 at 1:37 pm
Finally, some Tom Waits on DFD!
DFD, you made my day!….thanks
March 9th, 2010 at 1:41 pm
dhj, there was another Waits track from the 1st album a while ago. Great stuff. The early stuff, that is.
March 9th, 2010 at 2:00 pm
I’m ready for a barroom brawl.
March 9th, 2010 at 2:03 pm
Yesterday some mentioned how they never “got” the Beach Boys. I don’t “get” Waits. Not bashing. It’s just not my thing.
March 9th, 2010 at 2:13 pm
To Mr. Harvey…I’m the guy that didn’t get the Beach Boys…and other than this masterpiece of poetry and music, I have to agree with you that I don’t get Tom Waits…I find myself clearing my throat every time I hear him…and maybe I am just an old fart, but I still like to understand the lyrics…especially when they come from someone who is supposed to be a poet. This album is in regular rotation in my car and on the iPod…Totally off the thread here, but a great name for a band would be: Binky and the Barroom Brawl…Apologies if offense is taken, but that just jumped out at me when I read the threads.
March 9th, 2010 at 2:37 pm
This song was inspired by Tom’s mister-fix-it time at the Heritage Club in Mission Beach, CA. Paint brush good — free drinks and hip chix better.
March 9th, 2010 at 2:54 pm
I am a late-comer to Tom Waits. I was intrigued with him as a child after an appearance of his on talker Dick Cavett’s show where he smoked and drank and looked like he had basically just woken up and rolled out of the gutter and over to the TV studio. To my 5 year old eyes this was awesome but taboo. Once in college where I was meeting Tom Waits officianados about the same time as his late 1908s revival, I came to the conclusion that it was all bunk. But then another decade or so on I met Blood Money.
Today’s track sounds like Dr. John to me, which is not my bag, but hearing this stage of his carreer makes the drunken circus that is blood money that much more intriguing and dark and quite frankly, a tastier listen.
Do it get it? Probably not, but I like his story even if the music is not for me.
March 9th, 2010 at 3:07 pm
another scotch on the rocks and another tune please. nice choice Mr. Maher.
March 9th, 2010 at 3:25 pm
Not normally a Waits fan, but this was smooth. Nice selection.
March 9th, 2010 at 3:27 pm
I love all of Tom Waits’s stuff, but my favourite album would be “Bone Machine” from 1992. A beautiful soundtrack to the apocalypse.
March 9th, 2010 at 3:55 pm
While I love the ‘everything including the kitchen sink’ orchestral approach of his more experimental work that has made him truly one of a kind this early classic is perhaps one of the catchiest and most accessible tunes Tom ever wrote. Fine fine tune. I’d love to see him to revisit his early style for just one album to see what he would do with it now that he knows his way around the entire kitchen.
March 9th, 2010 at 4:38 pm
I saw Tom live at the new Dallas Fair Park Music Hall in ‘75. He is an interesting entertainer live. I enjoy his rough vocals and bluesy music. When I saw him, he played piano, had a bass (the big floor standing kind) player and an acoustic guitarist. The one song I remember clearly was about a “woman so ugly she’d make a freight train take a dirt road! lol! Great opening act for Janis Ian.
March 9th, 2010 at 5:34 pm
I like his sound,thank’s
March 9th, 2010 at 6:00 pm
very infectious music. half the responders sound drunk. so i guess we get it. aaahhhgggggrrrrrrrr.
March 9th, 2010 at 6:01 pm
This really reminds me of Dr. John. And this is really different from the Tom Waits of the last 10 years.
March 9th, 2010 at 6:39 pm
That was good, but IMHO Tom Waits is overrated.
March 9th, 2010 at 6:53 pm
Tom Waits is really for a select few. Although I can say that I don’t like everything he has done, he really has an abundance of great music. It’s like listening to the back alleys of Bourbon Street. There’s days you can always use a little Tom Waits. Thanks DFD!
March 9th, 2010 at 9:35 pm
I was working in a record store when this LP was released and it got a ton of deserved in-store play by me and everybody else there. That said, I don’t care much for Waits and his Charles Bukowski conceit - especially seeing as how Waits parents were middle-class school teachers or very close to it.
He can be a good writer when he wants to be and the LP this track comes off of - produced at a hungry time in his life before fame happened to him - proves it.
Nice choice, James Maher - and I agree with “D’s” idea of being an opening act for Janis Ian (who I have the utmost respect for).
March 10th, 2010 at 6:49 am
ah, a nice old Tom tune. Nobody ever really seem offended by his seventies bar-crooner-phase though, but don’t fret the reaction, DFD, if you should choose to highlight some obscure song from his later and honestly much more interesting and satisfying work. Bring it on!
@stinky, oh the time-honoured question of authenticity. So TW hasn’t really earned his street cred? So what? Does that make his craft any less? I have honestly never quite understood this frequent diatribe against TW, hasn’t it always been quite obvious that he played a character, that it was his shtick? Do you also confuse an actors role for his real life persona? I’m pretty sure if you apply those parameters on a lot of music acts past and present, you will end up pretty annoyed and disillusioned with the whole business.
March 10th, 2010 at 8:35 am
Pass…..(PS: Bob Seger covers this song on his Fire Inside cd)
March 10th, 2010 at 10:59 am
Nice pick Young James!
March 10th, 2010 at 12:24 pm
Bob Seger couldnt even be a roadie for this guy. Nice choice !
March 10th, 2010 at 1:05 pm
” …hasn’t it always been quite obvious that he played a character, that it was his shtick?”
Of course its always been obvious, Andeby; that’s why I used the word ‘conceit’ - and nothing I said in that post constitutes a “diatribe”, either. Most of my post was, in fact, laudatory - and I wasn’t questioning his “authenticity” or his “street cred” - whatever those terms may mean as applied to a performer. Waits is a ’song and dance’ man just like everybody else in show-biz. He has a product to sell and the ’shtick’ he utilizes to sell it has worked well for him.
March 10th, 2010 at 6:40 pm
Regarding Bill and his Bob Seger comment, Tom Waits couldn’t handle backup vocals for Bob Seger. I’m sure Waits made more cash from Seger singing the song than Waits did from his whole career. It’s how you do it, not how you write it.
March 10th, 2010 at 8:52 pm
@stinky, fair enough, only I didn’t quite get the need for juxtaposing the “Bukowski conceit” with the info of his parents being “middle-class school teachers” then. That’s what struck me as being a tad irrelevant, that’s all.
March 10th, 2010 at 8:57 pm
Excellent choice! Also check out Southside Johnny’s version!
March 11th, 2010 at 10:20 am
Don’t really understand how you can not “get” this unless you have a tin ear.
March 11th, 2010 at 1:17 pm
Catching up after being on the East Coast the last couple of days. This is a great one; I’m a late comer to Waits myself, but will need to dig deeper into his earlier stuff, based on this.
March 11th, 2010 at 10:38 pm
Wow!
I hear a lot of New Orleans, Dr. John in this one.
Never been a fan until this!