Tom Waits’ Bad as Me shows he’s still pretty good

By Brendan Tyndall
[contributor]

Tom Waits has assumed many identities over his career: beatnick jazz crooner, bard of the barroom balladeer, junkyard bluesman, demented circus leader and dustbowl poet, among others. Waits’ songs tell the stories of the downtrodden; those rough-around-the-edges misfits and rogues who live their life on the wrong side of the tracks. It’s because of Waits’ incredible diversity and flexibility that he has continued to evolve as an artist, putting out consistently good work into his sixties.

Bad as Me, Waits’ 17th album in a four decade career, is no exception. Right away, it’s obvious that Waits’ voice is in its best shape now. While recent albums have seen his perpetually gravelly, cigarette and booze soaked voice evolving into a guttural bark, more a percussion instrument rather than a melodic one, Bad as Me sees the singer exploring many different textures and subtleties. Over the course of the album Waits shouts, hollers, croaks, moans and croons, while his able backing band –– consisting of son Casey on drums, longtime session picker Marc Ribot, and guests Keith Richards, Flea and Les Claypool –– switch effortlessly from trashy blues to dirty funk and everything inbetween.

In addition to drawing from his usual assortment of  outsiders and desperate characters, Bad as Me continues to explore the political aspect of Waits’ songwriting, first hinted at in 2004’s Real Gone. “Talking at the Same Time” is a slippery minor key jazz number punctuated by whining steel guitar, in which Waits takes aim at a U.S. economy racked with corporate greed and a growing disparity between the rich and poor.

“Hell Broke Luce” is a thundering rocker in which a war-torn soldier struggles to comprehend his role in a fruitless war, numbing himself with drugs to erase the memories.

How does Tom Waits propose to deal with a world enshrouded in chaos and turmoil? Listening to “Bad as Me” reveals that maybe his solution is as easy as packing it up and hitting the highway.

The album’s opener, “Chicago”, starts off with a jarring burst of blaring horns, Dixieland banjo and snarling blues guitar while Wait’s hollers like he’s possessed by ghost of Howlin’ Wolf. “Get Lost”, finds Waits eager to grab his girl, get in the car, turn up the radio and hit the road and escape.

In “Face to the Highway”, Waits has seems to be troubled with traveler’s remorse: “I turn my face to the highway, and my back on you,” he sings over a sombre western backing.

At 62 years old, Waits has managed to do what many of his contemporaries cannot: his songs remain timely and rife with poignant social observations, yet they have a timeless feel that harkens back to better days in American history.

We should be glad that Waits is still putting out great music after all this time. Now all we can hope is that he decides to tour the album and find his way over to the West Coast.