Swordfishtrombones

Swordfishtrombones is the eighth studio album by American singer-songwriter Tom Waits, released in 1983 on Island Records. It was the first album that Waits self-produced. Stylistically different from his previous albums, Swordfishtrombones moves away from conventional piano-based songwriting towards unusual instrumentation and a somewhat more abstract and experimental rock approach.^[2] The album peaked at No. 164 on the Billboard Pop Albums and 200 albums charts.

Swordfishtrombones
Studio album by Tom Waits
Released	September 1, 1983
Recorded	August 1982
Studio	Sunset Sound, Hollywood, California
Genre	Experimental rock[1]
Length	41:41
Label	Island
Producer	Tom Waits
Tom Waits chronology
One from the Heart (1982) Swordfishtrombones (1983) Anthology of Tom Waits (1985)
Singles from Swordfishtrombones
"In the Neighborhood" Released: October 1983

It is often considered the first in a loose trilogy that includes Rain Dogs and Franks Wild Years. Per The Guardian, "These are records of startling originality and playfulness, of cacophonous discord and sudden heartbreaking melody, in which it seemed the artist was trying to incorporate the whole history of American song into his loose-limbed poetic storytelling."^[3]

Background

The album marks the beginning of Waits's eclectic use of instruments. As he put it in a contemporary interview: "Some of the stuff I think is a bit of a departure for me. The instrumentation is all different, and no saxophones. I used the banjo, accordion, bass-marimba, metal aunglongs, you know, African squeeze drum, a calliope, a harmonium. So some of the stuff is a little more exotic."^[4]

Swordfishtrombones also represented a lyrical departure. Per AllMusic,

Lyrically, Waits' tales of the drunken and the lovelorn have been replaced by surreal accounts of people who burned down their homes and of Australian towns bypassed by the railroad -- a world (not just a neighborhood) of misfits now have his attention. The music can be primitive, moving to odd time signatures, while Waits alternately howls and wheezes in his gravelly bass voice. He seems to have moved on from Hoagy Carmichael and Louis Armstrong to Kurt Weill and Howlin' Wolf (as impersonated by Captain Beefheart).^[5]

Artwork

The cover art is a TinTone photograph by Michael A. Russ^[6][7] showing Waits with the actors Angelo Rossitto and Lee Kolima.^[8]

Critical reception

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[2]
Blender	[9]
Houston Chronicle	[10]
Mojo	[11]
Q	[12]
Rolling Stone	[13]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide	[14]
Select	5/5[15]
Uncut	[16]
The Village Voice	A−[17]

Swordfishtrombones was ranked the second best album of 1983 by NME.^[18] In 1989, Spin named Swordfishtrombones the second greatest album of all time.^[19] Pitchfork ranked it at number 11 in its 2002 list of the best albums of the 1980s.^[20] In 2006, Q listed it as the 36th best album of the 1980s,^[21] while in 2012, Slant Magazine listed it as the decade's 26th best album.^[22] In 2000, it was voted number 374 in Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums.^[23] Elvis Costello included Swordfishtrombones on his list of essential albums, highlighting "16 Shells From a Thirty-Ought-Six" and "In the Neighborhood".^[24]

Jim Sclavunos recalls

Swordfishtrombones was a bombshell to say the least. That an artist with a gift for writing tunes so evocative of memories real and imagined would decisively rend the fabric of his well-established image, and trade in coolly louche atmospherics for neon-lit junkyard sonic grotesquery was a perverse strategy that I couldn’t help admiring. These no-holds-barred albums set the stage for the years of innovation upon innovation that followed.^[3]

Track listing

All tracks written by Tom Waits.

Side one

1. "Underground" – 1:58
2. "Shore Leave" – 4:12
3. "Dave the Butcher" (instrumental) – 2:15
4. "Johnsburg, Illinois" – 1:30
5. "16 Shells From a Thirty-Ought-Six" – 4:30
6. "Town with No Cheer" – 4:22
7. "In the Neighborhood" – 3:04

Side two

1. "Just Another Sucker on the Vine" (instrumental) – 1:42
2. "Frank's Wild Years" – 1:50
3. "Swordfishtrombone" – 3:00
4. "Down, Down, Down" – 2:10
5. "Soldier's Things" – 3:15
6. "Gin Soaked Boy" – 2:20
7. "Trouble's Braids" – 1:18
8. "Rainbirds" (instrumental) – 3:05

Personnel

• Tom Waits – vocals (1:1–2, 1:4–7, 2:2–7), chair (1:2), Hammond B-3 organ (1:3), piano (1:4, 2:5, 2:8), harmonium (1:6, 2:1), synthesizer (1:6), freedom bell (1:6)
• Victor Feldman – bass marimba (1:1–2), marimba (1:2, 2:3), shaker (1:2), bass drum with rice (1:2), bass boo bams (1:3), Brake drum (1:5), bell plate (1:5), snare (1:5, 2:4), Hammond B-3 organ (1:7), snare drum (1:7), bells (1:7), conga (2:3), bass drum (2:3), Dabuki drum (2:3), tambourine (2:4), African talking drum (2:7)
• Larry Taylor – acoustic bass (1:1–2, 1:5, 1:7, 2:2, 2:4, 2:6–7), electric bass (2:3)
• Randy Aldcroft – baritone horn (1:1, 1:7), trombone (1:2)
• Stephen Taylor Arvizu Hodges – drums (1:1–2, 1:5, 2:4, 2:6), parade drum (1:7), cymbals (1:7), parade bass drum (2:7), glass harmonica (2:8)
• Fred Tackett – electric guitar (1:1, 1:2, 1:5, 2:6), banjo (1:2)
• Francis Thumm – metal aunglongs (1:2), glass harmonica (2:8)
• Greg Cohen – bass (1:4), acoustic bass (2:3, 2:5, 2:8)
• Joe Romano – trombone (1:5), trumpet (2:1)
• Anthony Clark Stewart – bagpipes (1:6)
• Clark Spangler – synthesizer program (1:6)
• Bill Reichenbach Jr. – trombone (1:7)
• Dick Hyde – trombone (1:7)
• Ronnie Barron – Hammond organ (2:2)
• Eric Bikales – organ (2:4)
• Carlos Guitarlos – electric guitar (2:4)
• Richard Gibbs – glass harmonica (2:8)

• Recorded by Tim Boyle and Biff Dawes.
• Mixed by Dawes at Sunset Sound Studios, Hollywood, CA.

Charts

Chart (1983)	Peak position
Dutch Top 100[25]	48
UK Albums Chart[26]	62
US Billboard 200[27]	167
Chart (1984)	Peak position
New Zealand RIANZ Albums Chart[28]	45
Norwegian Albums Chart[29]	18

Certifications

Region	Certification	Certified units/sales
United Kingdom (BPI)[30]	Silver	60,000^
^ Shipments figures based on certification alone.

Usage in media

Mike, Tom, and Crow sing "Underground" on Wanda's arrival in Atlantis in the 1993 Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode "Alien from L.A.". The song was used for the Chop Shop theme in the 2005 movie Robots.

"Soldier's Things" was covered by Paul Young on his 1985 album The Secret of Association, and is used in the 2005 movie Jarhead.

References

1. Editors of Rolling Stone (November 8, 2001). "Tom Waits". Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll. Touchstone. ISBN 9780743201209. Retrieved April 6, 2017.
2. Ruhlmann, William. "Swordfishtrombones – Tom Waits". AllMusic. Retrieved November 17, 2015.
3. Adams, Tim. "'All these bulletproof songs, one after another': remembering Tom Waits' extraordinary mid-career trilogy". The Guardian.
4. "Tom Waits - Instruments". Tomwaitslibrary.info.
5. "Tom Waits - Swordfishtrombones Album Reviews, Songs & More". AllMusic.
6. "Michael A. Russ' TinTone homepage". Tintones.com. Retrieved February 29, 2016.
7. "'TinTones – Rough Print' exhibition by Michael A. Russ". Retrieved November 14, 2012.
8. Smay, David (2008). Tom Waits' Swordfishtrombones. New York: Continuum. pp. 11–12. ISBN 978-1-4411-7459-8.
9. Smith, RJ (March 2007). "Tom Waits". Blender. Vol. 6, no. 2. pp. 150–151.
10. Dansby, Andrew (November 19, 2006). "The best (and not-so-best) of Tom Waits". Houston Chronicle. Retrieved December 11, 2021.
11. Male, Andrew (July 2010). "Tom Waits: Swordfishtrombones". Mojo. No. 200. p. 77.
12. "Tom Waits: Swordfishtrombones". Q. No. 73. October 1992. p. 100.
13. Shewey, Don (November 24, 1983). "Swordfishtrombones". Rolling Stone. No. 409. Archived from the original on November 10, 2021. Retrieved October 24, 2011.
14. Coleman, Mark; Scoppa, Bud (2004). "Tom Waits". In Brackett, Nathan; Hoard, Christian (eds.). The New Rolling Stone Album Guide (4th ed.). Simon & Schuster. pp. 854–855. ISBN 0-7432-0169-8.
15. Collis, Andrew (February 1993). "Tom Waits: Rain Dogs / Swordfishtrombones". Select. No. 32. p. 82.
16. Gill, Andy (December 2011). "What Is He Building in There..?". Uncut. No. 175. pp. 52–53.
17. Christgau, Robert (March 24, 1984). "Christgau's Consumer Guide". The Village Voice. Retrieved December 8, 2011.
18. "NME's best albums and tracks of 1983". NME. October 10, 2016. Retrieved March 13, 2018.
19. "The 25 Greatest Albums of All Time". Spin. Vol. 5, no. 1. April 1989. pp. 46–48, 50–51. Retrieved August 14, 2007.
20. "The Top 100 Albums of the 1980s". Pitchfork. November 21, 2002. p. 9. Retrieved January 28, 2020.
21. "40 Best Albums of the '80s". Q. No. 241. August 2006. pp. 84–89.
22. "The 100 Best Albums of the 1980s". Slant Magazine. March 5, 2012. Retrieved July 9, 2012.
23. Larkin, Colin (2000). All Time Top 1000 Albums (3rd ed.). Virgin Books. p. 144. ISBN 0-7535-0493-6.
24. Costello, Elvis. "Elvis Costello's 500 Must-Have Albums, from Rap to Classical". Vanity Fair.
25. "Tom Waits – Swordfishtrombones". Dutchcharts.nl. Hung Medien. Retrieved May 2, 2012.
26. "TOM WAITS | Artist | Official Charts". UK Albums Chart. Official Charts Company. Retrieved May 2, 2012.
27. Swordfishtrombones – Tom Waits at AllMusic. Retrieved May 2, 2012.
28. "charts.nz – Tom Waits – Swordfishtrombones". charts.nz. Hung Medien. Retrieved May 2, 2012.
29. "norwegiancharts.com – Tom Waits – Swordfishtrombones". norwegiancharts.com. Hung Medien. Retrieved May 2, 2012.
30. "British album certifications – Tom Waits – Swordfishtrombones". British Phonographic Industry. Retrieved November 11, 2023.