Maps of Music

Rain Dogs (1985)

Where the lyrics of Rain Dogs take you, and where it was really made.

The man on the cover looks like Tom Waits, but the photo was taken around 1967 at a Hamburg café by Swedish photographer Anders Petersen.

Key places

Recording at RCA Studios, New York City (1985)

Recording site Record Plant Studios — Discogs lists RCA Studios as the recording location for this release. The point is set at New York City city-center level, not at the building. Google Maps · Apple Maps

How to get there: See the map for directions.

Café Lehmitz, the cover photo location (1985)

Album cover Café Lehmitz — The cover photograph was taken at Café Lehmitz near the Hamburg Reeperbahn by Anders Petersen, around 1967. The point marks the café's location. Google Maps · Apple Maps

How to get there: See the map for directions.

9th Street and Hennepin Avenue, Minneapolis (1985)

In the lyrics Flyte Tyme Records — The spoken piece on the album concerns people on 9th Street and Hennepin Avenue in Minneapolis. The point marks the city center only. Google Maps · Apple Maps

Album story

Overview

• Rain Dogs: ninth studio album by American singer-songwriter Tom Waits
• Released September 1985 on Island Records
• Loose concept album about "the urban dispossessed" of New York City
• Generally considered the middle album of a trilogy with Swordfishtrombones and Franks Wild Years
• Features guitarists Keith Richards and Marc Ribot

Background

• Broad range of musical styles and genres, which Arion Berger described as a merging of outsider influences
• Influences named: socialist decadence by way of Kurt Weill, pre-rock integrity of old dirty blues, and the elegiac melancholy of New Orleans funeral brass
• Theme partly inspired by Martin Bell's 1984 documentary Streetwise, to which Waits had contributed music

Recording

• Waits wrote most of the album in a two-month stint in fall 1984
• Writing room: a basement at the corner of Washington and Horatio Streets in Manhattan
• Before recording, Waits captured street sounds and ambient noise on a cassette recorder
• Instruments include marimba, accordion, double bass, trombone and banjo
• Waits distrusted fashionable studio techniques and preferred natural, hands-on methods
• First collaboration with guitarist Marc Ribot
• First recording with Keith Richards, who played on "Big Black Mariah", "Union Square" and "Blind Love"

Cover

• Photograph by Swedish photographer Anders Petersen, one of a series
• Taken at Café Lehmitz near the Hamburg Reeperbahn around 1967
• Man and woman on the cover are called Rose and Lilly
• The man resembles Waits, but the photo is not of him

Sources: en.wikipedia.org · www.discogs.com · www.discogs.com · pt.wikipedia.org

Tracklist

Sources: musicbrainz.org

Artist

Career

• Tom Waits, born Thomas Alan Waits on 7 December 1949 in Pomona, California, is an American singer-songwriter, musician, music director and actor.
• Known for his gravelly voice, cynical texts and theatrical stage presence, he blends blues, jazz, bluegrass, vaudeville and country with rock.
• His lyrics portray the bizarre and overlooked people and places, while his work also shows romanticism and humour.
• Debuted in Los Angeles in 1971 after signing with manager Herb Cohen; the album Closing Time (1973) received good reviews, and the Eagles' cover of Ol' 55 brought success in 1974.
• Mid-1980s albums Swordfishtrombones, Rain Dogs and Frank's Wild Years featured eclectic instrumentation, marking a less conventional period after leaving Asylum for Island Records.
• Worked with his wife Kathleen Brennan on musicals such as The Black Rider with William S. Burroughs, and moved toward theatre alongside a parallel acting career.
• Acted in films by Francis Ford Coppola, Jim Jarmusch, Robert Altman and Terry Gilliam; composed the score for Coppola's Coup de cœur.
• Won Grammy Awards for Bone Machine (1993) and Mule Variations (2000); inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2011.
• Has consistently refused to license his music for advertising and won lawsuits against several companies that ignored this.

Sources: fr.wikipedia.org

Reception

At release

• Robert Palmer of The New York Times named it the year's best album
• NME's Biba Kopf said Waits lost none of his poetry while pursuing new musical languages
• NME ranked it jointly with Psychocandy as the year's best album at the end of 1985
• Robert Christgau of The Village Voice gave it a B+ and called Waits the poet of America's non-nine-to-fivers
• Anthony DeCurtis of Rolling Stone wrote a mixed assessment

Reappraisal

• Rolling Stone critic Arion Berger gave the album five out of five stars in a 2002 reappraisal
• AllMusic reviewer William Ruhlmann said it could not surprise like Swordfishtrombones but still qualified as one of Waits' better albums
• Pitchfork's Mark Richardson called it a romantic and carnivalesque masterpiece with the avant-garde sound of New York
• Richardson also said its lyrics might be the best of Waits' career
• Retrospectively, the album is noted as one of the most important in Waits' career, continuing the path begun with Swordfishtrombones

Records

• Peaked at number 29 on the UK charts and number 188 on the US Billboard Top 200
• Rolling Stone ranked it number 21 on its 100 Best Albums of the Eighties list
• Rolling Stone ranked it 399 in its 2012 update and 357 in its 2020 update of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time
• Pitchfork ranked it eighth best album of the 1980s
• Slant Magazine ranked it number 14 on its Best Albums of the 1980s list
• Included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die
• Voted number 299 in Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums in 2000

Sources: en.wikipedia.org · es.wikipedia.org

Trivia

• Keith Richards played on "Big Black Mariah", "Union Square" and "Blind Love", marking Waits' first recording with him
• Rod Stewart had success with his cover of "Downtown Train"
• "Hang Down Your Head" is loosely based on the folk song "Tom Dooley", keeping nearly the same melody with different lyrics

Sources: en.wikipedia.org · pt.wikipedia.org · es.wikipedia.org

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