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Small Change (Tom Waits album)

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Small Change
Studio album by
Tom Waits
ReleasedSeptember 21, 1976 (1976-09-21)
RecordedJuly 15–29, 1976
StudioWally Heider's Studio 3 (Hollywood)
Length49:28
LabelAsylum
ProducerBones Howe
Tom Waits chronology
Nighthawks at the Diner
(1975) 		Small Change
(1976) 		Foreign Affairs
(1977)

Small Change is the fourth studio album by singer and songwriter Tom Waits, released on September 21, 1976 on Asylum Records.[1] It was recorded in July at Wally Heider's Studio 3 in Hollywood. It was successful commercially and outsold his previous albums. This resulted in Waits putting together a touring band - The Nocturnal Emissions, which consisted of Frank Vicari on tenor saxophone, FitzGerald Jenkins on bass guitar and Chip White on drums and vibraphone. The Nocturnal Emissions toured Europe and the United States extensively from October 1976 till May 1977.

Production

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Small Change was recorded, direct to 2-track stereo tape, July 15, 19–21 and 29, 1976 at Wally Heider's Studio 3 in Hollywood[2] under the production of Bones Howe. A multi-track recording was made as back up, and used when a reference Waits made to actress Jayne Meadows had to be changed.[3] Howe recounted: "We set up at Heider's for that record the same way I used to make jazz records in the 1950s. I wanted to take Tom back to that direction of making records, with an orchestra and Tom in the same room, all playing and singing together. I was never afraid of making a record where the musicians all breathed the same air. Leakage is not a problem. In fact, it's a good thing — it holds a record together... He was always surrounded by the music and the records sound like it. We never used headphones. Never."[3]

Music

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The album featured famed drummer Shelly Manne, and was, like Waits' previous albums, heavily jazz-influenced, with a lyrical style that owed influence to Raymond Chandler and Charles Bukowski as well as a vocal delivery influenced by Louis Armstrong, Dr. John and Howlin' Wolf. The music, for the most part, consists of Waits' gravelly, rough voice, set against a backdrop of piano, upright bass, drums and saxophone. Some tracks have a string section, whose sweet timbre is starkly contrasted to Waits' voice.

"Tom Traubert's Blues" opens the album. Jay S. Jacobs has described the song as a "stunning opener [which] sets the tone for what follows."[4] The refrain is based almost word by word on the 1890 Australian song, "Waltzing Matilda" by A.B. "Banjo" Paterson, although the tune is slightly different.

The origin of the song is somewhat ambiguous. The sub-title, "Four Sheets to the Wind in Copenhagen", seems to indicate that it is about a time that Waits spent in Copenhagen in 1976 while on a tour. There, he apparently met Danish singer Mathilde Bondo. Indeed, in a 1998 radio interview, she confirmed that she met Waits and that they spent a night on the town together. Waits himself described the song's subject during a concert in Sydney, Australia in March 1979: "Uh, well I met this girl named Matilda. And uh, I had a little too much to drink that night. This is about throwing up in a foreign country."[4] In an interview on NPR's World Cafe, aired December 15, 2006, Waits said that Tom Traubert was a "friend of a friend" who died in prison.[5]

Bones Howe, the album's producer, recalls when Waits first came to him with the song:

He said the most wonderful thing about writing that song. He went down and hung around on skid row in L.A. because he wanted to get stimulated for writing this material. He called me up and said, "I went down to skid row ... I bought a pint of rye. In a brown paper bag." I said, "Oh really?" "Yeah - hunkered down, drank the pint of rye, went home, threw up, and wrote 'Tom Traubert's Blues' [...] Every guy down there ... everyone I spoke to, a woman put him there."[4]

Howe was amazed when he first heard the song, and he's still astonished by it. "I do a lot of seminars," he says. "Occasionally I'll do something for songwriters. They all say the same thing to me. 'All the great lyrics are done.' And I say, 'I'm going to give you a lyric that you never heard before.'" Howe offers the following to his aspiring songwriters: "A battered old suitcase to a hotel someplace / And a wound that will never heal." This particular Tom Waits lyric Howe considers to be "brilliant." It's "the work of an extremely talented lyricist, poet, whatever you want to say. That is brilliant, brilliant work. And he never mentions the person, but you see the person."[4]

The song has been recorded by Rod Stewart on two 1993 albums, Lead Vocalist and Unplugged...and Seated under the title "Tom Traubert's Blues (Waltzing Matilda)".

The album's closing song, "I Can't Wait to Get Off Work (And See My Baby on Montgomery Avenue)", has a simple musical arrangement, boasting only Waits' voice and piano, with bass by Jim Hughart. The lyrics are about Waits' first job at Napoleone Pizza House in San Diego, which he began in 1965, at the age of 16.[6]

An excerpt of the opening saxophone solo from "Small Change (Got Rained On With His Own .38)" was used for the opening of BBC Two's Moviedrome in 1988, its first season of screening cult films introduced by Alex Cox.

Themes

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At the time of the recording of Small Change Waits was drinking more and more heavily, and life on the road was starting to take its toll on him. Waits, looking back at the period said:

I was sick through that whole period [...] It was starting to wear on me, all the touring. I'd been travelling quite a bit, living in hotels, eating bad food, drinking a lot - too much. There's a lifestyle that's there before you arrive and you're introduced to it. It's unavoidable.[7]

Waits recorded the album in reaction to these hardships. This is evident in the pessimism and cynicism that pervade the record, with many songs, such as "The Piano Has Been Drinking" and "Bad Liver and a Broken Heart" presenting a bare and honest portrayal of alcoholism, while also cementing Waits' hard-living reputation in the eyes of many fans. The album's themes include those of desolation, deprivation, and, above all else, alcoholism. The cast of characters, which includes hookers, strippers and small-time losers, are, for the most part, night-owls and drunks; people lost in a cold, urban world.

With the album Waits asserted that he "tried to resolve a few things as far as this cocktail-lounge, maudlin, crying-in-your-beer image that I have. There ain't nothin' funny about a drunk [...] I was really starting to believe that there was something amusing and wonderfully American about being a drunk. I ended up telling myself to cut that shit out."[8]

Beyond the serious themes with which the album deals, the lyrics are often also noted for their humour; with songs such as "The Piano Has Been Drinking" and "Bad Liver And A Broken Heart" including puns and jokes in their treatment of alcoholism, with the added humour in Waits' drunken diction.

Cover

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The cover art features Waits sitting in a go-go dancer's dressing room, with a topless go-go dancer standing nearby. It was alleged that the go-go dancer pictured is Cassandra Peterson,[9] who portrayed the iconic Elvira, Mistress of the Dark. Peterson, however, says she's not sure of the authenticity of this claim, stating, "I can’t say it’s completely not me—I can’t say it’s not true—but I have absolutely no recollection of doing it, if it is true....I do not remember the ’70s, for who-knows-what-all reasons. But anyway, it could be me. There is a possibility. But I just look and look and look at it and go, “It doesn’t look exactly like me.” I don’t know. Maybe it is."[10][11] Peterson now asserts it is not her on the cover.[12]

Reception

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Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[13]
Christgau's Record GuideB−[14]
Classic Rock9/10[15]
Mojo[16]
Pitchfork9.0/10[17]
Q[18]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide[19]
Uncut[20]

Small Change received critical reviews equal to or better than Waits' previous albums, and was at first a surprise commercial success, rising to #89 on the Billboard chart within two weeks of its release. Three weeks later, the album fell off the Billboard Top 200, and Waits was not to better its position until 1999's Mule Variations.[2]

When asked in an interview with Mojo in 1999 if he shared many fans' view that Small Change was the crowning moment of his "beatnik-glory-meets-Hollywood-noir period" (i.e. from 1973 to 1980), Waits replied:

Well, gee. I'd say there's probably more songs off that record that I continued to play on the road, and that endured. Some songs you may write and record but you never sing them again. Others you sing em every night and try and figure out what they mean. "Tom Traubert's Blues" was certainly one of those songs I continued to sing, and in fact, close my show with.[21]

In 2000, Small Change was voted number 958 in Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums.[22]

Track listing

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All songs written and composed by Tom Waits.

Side one

No.TitleLength
1."Tom Traubert's Blues (Four Sheets to the Wind in Copenhagen)"6:39
2."Step Right Up"5:43
3."Jitterbug Boy (Sharing a Curbstone with Chuck E. Weiss, Robert Marchese, Paul Body and The Mug and Artie)"3:44
4."I Wish I Was in New Orleans (In the Ninth Ward)"4:53
5."The Piano Has Been Drinking (Not Me) (An Evening with Pete King)"3:40

Side two

No.TitleLength
1."Invitation to the Blues"5:24
2."Pasties and a G-String (At the Two O'Clock Club)"2:32
3."Bad Liver and a Broken Heart (In Lowell)"4:50
4."The One That Got Away"4:07
5."Small Change (Got Rained on with His Own .38)"5:07
6."I Can't Wait to Get Off Work (And See My Baby on Montgomery Avenue)"3:17
Total length:49:28

Personnel

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Chart positions

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Chart (1976) Peak
position
US Billboard 200[23] 89

Certifications

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Region Certification Certified units/sales
Australia (ARIA)[24] Gold 35,000^
United Kingdom (BPI)[25] Silver 60,000^

^ Shipments figures based on certification alone.

References

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  1. ^ "Releases". Anti-. p. 1. Archived from the original on March 8, 2018. Retrieved March 6, 2018.
  2. ^ a b "Tom Waits Time line: 1976 - 1980". Archived from the original on 2008-10-26. Retrieved 2007-01-18.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  3. ^ a b Daley, Dan (February 2004). "'Bones' Howe & Tom Waits". Sound On Sound. SOS Publications Group. Retrieved 1 April 2022.
  4. ^ a b c d "Tom Traubert's Blues". Tom Waits Library. Archived from the original on 2011-12-09. Retrieved 2007-01-18.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  5. ^ Interview with Tom Waits on NPR's World Cafe, aired December 15, 2006
  6. ^ Montadon, Mac, Timeline and Discography in Innocent When You Dream, p. 385
  7. ^ McGee, David (1977), Smellin' Like a Brewery, Lookin' Like a Tramp, in Montandon, p.29
  8. ^ McGee, David (1977), Smellin' Like a Brewery, Lookin' Like a Tramp, in Montandon, p.30
  9. ^ "When Elvira met Tom Waits". The A.V. Club. 13 September 2010.
  10. ^ "Elvira on her date with Elvis and the fish recipe she got from Vincent Price". The A.V. Club. 5 October 2016.
  11. ^ O'Neal, Sam (October 28, 2009). "Elvira, Mistress Of The Dark (and merchandising)". The A.V. Club. Retrieved November 20, 2009.
  12. ^ Kielty, Martin (2020-10-29). "It's Official: That's Not Elvira on Tom Waits' Album Cover". Ultimate Classic Rock. Retrieved 2024-10-21.
  13. ^ Ruhlmann, William. "Small Change – Tom Waits". AllMusic. Retrieved October 11, 2020.
  14. ^ Christgau, Robert (1981). "W". Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies. Ticknor and Fields. ISBN 0-89919-026-X. Retrieved March 21, 2019 – via robertchristgau.com.
  15. ^ Johnston, Emma (May 2018). "Tom Waits: Reissues". Classic Rock. No. 248. p. 98.
  16. ^ "Tom Waits: Small Change". Mojo. No. 200. July 2010. p. 76.
  17. ^ Deusner, Stephen M. (March 24, 2018). "Tom Waits: The Asylum Era". Pitchfork. Retrieved March 24, 2018.
  18. ^ "Tom Waits: Small Change". Q. No. 73. October 1992. p. 101.
  19. ^ Coleman, Mark; Scoppa, Bud (2004). "Tom Waits". In Brackett, Nathan; Hoard, Christian (eds.). The New Rolling Stone Album Guide (4th ed.). Simon & Schuster. pp. 854–55. ISBN 0-7432-0169-8.
  20. ^ Gill, Andy (December 2011). "What Is He Building in There..?". Uncut. No. 175. pp. 52–53.
  21. ^ ""Tom Traubert's Blues" lyrics and notes". Tom Waits Library. Archived from the original on 2012-01-01.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  22. ^ Colin Larkin (2000). All Time Top 1000 Albums (3rd ed.). Virgin Books. p. 290. ISBN 0-7535-0493-6.
  23. ^ Small Change – Tom Waits: Awards at AllMusic. Retrieved July 26, 2012.
  24. ^ "ARIA Charts – Accreditations – 2001 Albums" (PDF). Australian Recording Industry Association. Retrieved July 26, 2012.
  25. ^ "British album certifications – Tom Waits – Small Change". British Phonographic Industry. Retrieved July 26, 2012.

Further reading

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  • MacLaren, Trevor, "Tom Waits: Small Change", 2004 March 2 All About Jazz.com link
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