If you have ever heard Tom Waits you are probably either hooked or cannot stand him. There’s something very special about Waits – for example, he is one of the few musicians die-hard fans don’t wish had died before the 80s (one of Paul McCartney’s cheesy 80s’ pop songs, anyone?). In fact, he never wrote a cheesy pop song and, like him or not, you must admit he never went commercial. Which is one of the reasons all of Waits’s material is worth getting.
However, while Waits never released a bad album, his music did change a bit over the years. Okay, so it changed a lot. If you have only heard his later albums (chances are you have, he’s more popular for those than for his early ones) and like them, you might be a bit disappointed in his early stuff. They are nowhere as weird, and Waits’s voice is nowhere as hoarse. However, if you like anything by Waits and don’t mind folky, raw, Waitsy melodies, just give his earlier albums time to grow on you. They will, trust me on this.
This is where The Early Years come in. The Early Years, Vols. 1 & 2 are two albums of early outtakes and demos that were never meant to be released. Many of the songs here were later polished up and released on ‘real’ albums, like Closing Time, which contains a good amount of them. But owning Closing Time is not a reason not to get The Early Years. Let me repeat that: owning Closing Time is absolutely not a reason not to get The Early Years.
Now we can go on to ‘Why?’ Well, it’s an easy question to answer. First of all, these songs shouldn’t have got ‘polished up’. By doing so some lost just a little of their initial charm and others lost a lot of it (‘I Hope That I Don’t Fall In Love With You’, ‘Ice Cream Man’). Basically, the songs were made more ‘pop’ and ‘listener-friendly’ (well, that’s why I suppose they were changed anyway, although I find the early versions much more pleasant to listen to). Call me weird, but I prefer Tom and a piano (or a guitar) to Tom and eight other performers (!!) with their basses and trumpets and cellos which make the music anything but simple and anything but raw. Sometimes less is more.
Secondly, there are many intensely beautiful and/or just nice songs on The Early Years that, as far as I know, were not released later on – like ‘Mocking Bird’, ‘Poncho’s Lament’, ‘I’m Your Late Night Evening Prostitute’, ‘Looks Like I’m Up Shit Creek Again’, ‘Had Me A Girl’ etc.
Likewise, I wince every time someone says the albums are ‘underproduced’. Would it have been better if every single spontaneous or imperfect bit had been edited out and the rest had been put together so it would be up to the usual standards of shining perfection? That sounds mighty lot like using some cosmetic surgery on Waits himself so he would look prettier on the cover...
Best songs: I refuse to choose. They are all good. Well, almost all.
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