Rain Dogs

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Editorial reviews

Amazon.co.uk Review
The middle album of the trilogy that includes iSwordfishtrombones/i and iFranks Wild Years/i, iRain Dogs/i is Waits's best overall effort. The songs are first-rate, and there are a lot of them--19 in all, ranging from grim nightlife memoirs ("9th and Hennepin," "Singapore") to portraits of small-time hustlers ("Gun Street Girl", "Union Square") to bursts of street- corner philosophy ("Blind Love", "Time"). The album also contains the original version of "Downtown Train", which Rod Stewart turned into a smash hit. The image of "rain dogs"--animals who've lost their way home because the rain has washed away their scent--is an appropriate symbol for the entire cast of characters Waits has brought to life over the years, and this album has thus far proved to be his most enduring effort. i--Daniel Durchholz/i

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Customer reviews

review by: Psyco date: 2008-06-25 rating:
Hang down your head
What an album! I have never known two songs hang down your head and time to make me cry! They are two af my fave songs EVER! But the whole album just oozes by wonderfuly! Tom is an amazing geezer and this album rocks from start to finish! BUY IT!!

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review by: gaskella2 date: 2008-04-11 rating:
A brilliant mid-career set - My favourite Waits album
Tom Waits is one of music's best-kept secrets. You may not know his name, but you'll know his songs - Rod Stewart's cover of 'Downtown Train' or Springsteen's 'Jersey Girl' for instance. He's a outstanding songwriter with a unique selling point ... his voice. To describe it as a bourbon-soaked, gravelly barroom growl would be to do him a disservice as it's far more than that. It's another musical instrument, but one deriving from the theatre or circus, not from any conventional orchestra. br / br /Rain Dogs, the sequel to Swordfishtrombones (vols I II of a mid-career trilogy of albums for Island records), was released in 1985. There is not a single dud track from the first 'Singapore' and the anticipation of a journey just beginning, right to the end and the world-weary 'Anywhere I lay my head'. As usual we meet a motley groups of Waitsian characters from Uncle Vernon in the percussive 'Cemetery Polka' to Brooklyn girls in the sublime aforementioned 'Downtown Train'. We meet the guys 'Walking Spanish' - prisoners walking down death row and see the seedy side of life on '9th Hennepin'. My personal favourites are 'Jockey full of bourbon' and the title track 'Rain Dogs', both of which are about booze and carousing, and although they're not lullabies are strangely soothing musically. Several tracks are boosted by the appearance of Keith Richards too. This character fuelled album is upbeat and uplifting and totally addictive.

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review by: chinaboatman date: 2007-07-12 rating:
For I am a Rain Dog Too
Wait's most pop oriented (in the sense of short songs and catchy, easy to listen to tunes) lp and many people's favourite. A dizzyingly diverse series of vignettes in a range of Waits styles past and present ('Walking Spanish' looks back; 'Singapore' looks forward). A little of everything here, this album is almost like a commercial for Wait's career. Also perhaps his most varied album vocally, from whispered hush to his full scale `pirate' boom. br /Very upbeat, with little in the way of the slow ballads that had been his staple before this(though that doesn't mean there are no lumps in the throat: there are), there is an immediacy here that will rattle you through the 19 tracks before you can catch your breath.

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review by: date: 2007-04-20 rating:
1st and still best
This was the very first CD I ever bought - a random choice after hearing his music used in a contemporary dance show. It thrilled me then and it thrills me now. Unquestionably deserves it's place in the best albums ever line up.


review by: ...Hail to the Theif... date: 2007-01-23 rating:
oh god...
One of the greatest albums of all time.. no more, no less. Its hard for me to understand why I like Rain Dogs.. but then again its hard for me to understand why I like Tom Waits so much in the first place.. I guess he is more of an aquired taste to most people, reguardless, this album is an artistic masterpeice. Waits' lyrics are very poetic and abstract as usual.. and musically there is a balance here that most albums of any genre can't accomplish. There is a perfect mix of serious ballads and quirky, fun, polkas or whatever. br / br /I cant really reccomend this album to anyone who has not heard of or heard Tom Waits.. because this band is rather like Primus in the sense that you either hate it, or love it.. and if you love Tom Waits, then you already have this album.

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