‘Orphans’: Tom Waits’ Best Album to Date!

After 2004’s disappointing “Real Gone”, I’ve been waiting very long for the next album. And by golly, does Waits deliver.

Orphans consists of three discs: ‘Brawlers’, ‘Bawlers’ and ‘Bastards’. All of which represent a different part of Waits awesome musical arsenal, and together make a terrific testament of the living legend Tom Waits is.

Brawlers

Brawlers is a nice representation of the typical style, which Waits has arrived at, by combining rock, jazz and probably a healthy dose of Jack Daniels.

And it works. There are some true masterpieces on here, such as ‘Road To Peace’, which not only is a great tune musically, but also has some amazingly well-written lyrics, regarding the middle eastern situation.

The opening track, ‘Lie To Me’ is another instant classic, in my eyes. A great starter, with more drive than ‘Starving the Belly of a Whale’, ‘Misery Is the River of the World’ and ‘God’s Away on Business’ (from “Blood Money”) put together. All in all, there are many similarities between Brawlers and the ‘Blood Money’ and ‘Mule Variations’ albums, but still, Brawlers feel a lot more mature, so to speak.

Bawlers

Bawlers is probably my favorite of the three albums. This is the moody, and blues-inspired part. With amazing songs such as ‘You Can Never Hold Back Spring’, ‘Little Man’, ‘Fannin St.’ and ‘The Fall of Troy’ (which I’ve heard before, then entitled ‘Dead Man Walking’. Both as a live version and in the same studio-version as on this album.)

There are many songs on this album, that I believe will probably wind up being seen as equal classics to ‘I Hope I Don’t Fall in Love With You’. Oh, and I'm glad to see the song from Shrek 2 on here as well (‘Little Drop of Poison’)..

Bastards

Then there is Bastards. A genius piece of work. I’d just like to bring out the example of ‘Children’s Story’ right away, as a good representation of what this part of the album is all about. The weird, the pessimistic and the beauty of sadness.

All in all

The final conclusion will have to be, that if you're just going to get one Tom Waits-album, this is as good as it gets. In fact, to top this one, you’d need the other three best Tom Waits-albums put together. (Oh, and those are IMHO ‘Blood Money’, ‘Mule Variations’ and ‘Nighthawks at the Diner’, in case you were wondering)