Recorded in August 1982.

Composer: Tom Waits.

Personnel: Tom Waits (vocals, guitar, fiddle, harmonium, synthesizer); Crystal Gayle (vocals); Fred Tackett (guitar, electric guitar, banjo); Carlos Guitarlos (guitar, electric guitar); Dennis Budimir (guitar); Anthony Stewart, Anthony Clark (bagpipe); Stephen Hodges (harmonica, drums); Francis Thumm (harmonica, glass armonica, anklung); Les Thompson (harmonica); Pete Jolly (accordion, piano); Teddy Edwards (saxophone); Randall Aldcroft (baritone saxophone, trombone, horns, baritone horn); Joe Rimano, Joe Romano (trumpet, trombone); Chuck Findley, Jack Sheldon (trumpet); Dick Hyde, Richard Hyde, Bill Reichenbach Jr. (trombone); Donald Waldrop (tuba); Gayle LaVant (horns); Bob Alcivar (piano); Eric Bikales (organ); Ronnie Barron (keyboards); Emil Richards (vibraphone); Victor Feldman (marimba, bass drum, snare drum, congas, tambourine, percussion); Greg Cohen, Larry Taylor (acoustic bass); Big John Thomassie, Larry Bunker, Shelly Manne (drums); Richard Gibbs (glass armonica); Jeff Porcaro (percussion); Clark Spangler (programming); John Lowe, Lanny Morgan (wind).

Audio Mixer: Biff Dawes.

Recording information: Leeds Instrument Rental (08/1982); Sunset sound (08/1982).

Unknown Contributor Role: Francis Thumm.

Arrangers: Francis Thumm; Tom Waits.

Between the release of Heartattack and Vine in 1980 and Swordfishtrombones in 1983, Tom Waits got rid of his manager, his producer, and his record company. And he drastically altered a musical approach that had become as dependable as it was unexciting. Swordfishtrombones has none of the strings and much less of the piano work that Waits' previous albums had employed; instead, the dominant sounds on the record were low-pitched horns, bass instruments, and percussion, set in spare, close-miked arrangements (most of them by Waits) that sometimes were better described as "soundscapes." Lyrically, Waits' tales of the drunken and the lovelorn have been replaced by surreal accounts of people who burned down their homes and of Australian towns bypassed by the railroad -- a world (not just a neighborhood) of misfits now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). Waits seems to have had trouble interesting a record label in the album, which was cut 13 months before it was released, but when it appeared, rock critics predictably raved: after all, it sounded weird and it didn't have a chance of selling. Actually, it did make the bottom of the best-seller charts, like most of Waits' albums, and now that he was with a label based in Europe, even charted there. Artistically, Swordfishtrombones marked an evolution of which Waits had not seemed capable (though there were hints of this sound on his last two Asylum albums), and in career terms it reinvented him. ~ William Ruhlmann

Though Tom Waits had spent most of the '70s establishing himself as one of America's most distinctive singer-songwriters, SWORDFISHTROMBONES found him reinventing himself and creating one of the most original sounds in popular music. Leaving behind his Kerouac-influenced lyrics and lounge-lizard piano-bar stylings for an unprecedented eclecticism that merged Brecht-Weill artsong, Captain Beefheart-style avant blues, Harry Partch-inspired junkyard percussion, along with a healthy dose of everything else but the kitchen sink.

All this sonic exoticism would be for naught where it not accompanied by equally striking, arch songwriting. SWORDFISHTROMBONES moves from the Ken Nordine-style recitative of "Frank's Wild Years" and the demented Delta blues of "Gin Soaked Boy" to the marimba-laced shaggy-dog tale "Shore Leave" and the crazed, Loony Tunes instrumental "Dave the Butcher."

The blazed a trail that Waits (and countless imitators) would follow fruitfully for years to come, and remains one of the most impressive recordings not just of Waits's career, but of anyone's.