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Franks Wild Years
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Franks Wild Years in Bloomington, MN
Current price: $17.99
Franks Wild Years in Bloomington, MN
Current price: $17.99
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Size: CD
Tom Waits
wrote a song called
"Frank's Wild Years"
for his 1983
Swordfishtrombones
album, then used the title (minus its apostrophe) for a
musical
play he wrote with his wife,
Kathleen Brennan
, and toured with in 1986. The
Franks Wild Years
album, drawn from the show, is subtitled, "un operachi romantico in two acts," though the songs themselves do not carry the plot. Rather, this is just the third installment in
Waits
' eccentric series of
Island Records
albums in which he seems most inspired by German art song and
carnival
music, presenting songs in spare, stripped-down arrangements consisting of instruments like marimba, baritone horn, and pump organ and singing in a strained voice that has been artificially compressed and distorted. The songs themselves often are conventional romantic vignettes, or would be minus the oddities of instrumentation, arrangement, and performance. For example,
"Innocent When You Dream,"
a song of disappointment in love and friendship, has a winning melody, but it is played in a seesaw arrangement of pump organ, bass, violin, and piano, and
sings it like an enraged drunk. (He points out the arbitrary nature of the arrangements by repeating
"Straight to the Top,"
done as a demented
rhumba
in act one, as a Vegas-style
Frank Sinatra
swing
tune in act two.) The result on record may not be theatrical, exactly, but it certainly is affected. It also has the quality of an inside joke that listeners are not being let in on. ~ William Ruhlmann
wrote a song called
"Frank's Wild Years"
for his 1983
Swordfishtrombones
album, then used the title (minus its apostrophe) for a
musical
play he wrote with his wife,
Kathleen Brennan
, and toured with in 1986. The
Franks Wild Years
album, drawn from the show, is subtitled, "un operachi romantico in two acts," though the songs themselves do not carry the plot. Rather, this is just the third installment in
Waits
' eccentric series of
Island Records
albums in which he seems most inspired by German art song and
carnival
music, presenting songs in spare, stripped-down arrangements consisting of instruments like marimba, baritone horn, and pump organ and singing in a strained voice that has been artificially compressed and distorted. The songs themselves often are conventional romantic vignettes, or would be minus the oddities of instrumentation, arrangement, and performance. For example,
"Innocent When You Dream,"
a song of disappointment in love and friendship, has a winning melody, but it is played in a seesaw arrangement of pump organ, bass, violin, and piano, and
sings it like an enraged drunk. (He points out the arbitrary nature of the arrangements by repeating
"Straight to the Top,"
done as a demented
rhumba
in act one, as a Vegas-style
Frank Sinatra
swing
tune in act two.) The result on record may not be theatrical, exactly, but it certainly is affected. It also has the quality of an inside joke that listeners are not being let in on. ~ William Ruhlmann
Tom Waits
wrote a song called
"Frank's Wild Years"
for his 1983
Swordfishtrombones
album, then used the title (minus its apostrophe) for a
musical
play he wrote with his wife,
Kathleen Brennan
, and toured with in 1986. The
Franks Wild Years
album, drawn from the show, is subtitled, "un operachi romantico in two acts," though the songs themselves do not carry the plot. Rather, this is just the third installment in
Waits
' eccentric series of
Island Records
albums in which he seems most inspired by German art song and
carnival
music, presenting songs in spare, stripped-down arrangements consisting of instruments like marimba, baritone horn, and pump organ and singing in a strained voice that has been artificially compressed and distorted. The songs themselves often are conventional romantic vignettes, or would be minus the oddities of instrumentation, arrangement, and performance. For example,
"Innocent When You Dream,"
a song of disappointment in love and friendship, has a winning melody, but it is played in a seesaw arrangement of pump organ, bass, violin, and piano, and
sings it like an enraged drunk. (He points out the arbitrary nature of the arrangements by repeating
"Straight to the Top,"
done as a demented
rhumba
in act one, as a Vegas-style
Frank Sinatra
swing
tune in act two.) The result on record may not be theatrical, exactly, but it certainly is affected. It also has the quality of an inside joke that listeners are not being let in on. ~ William Ruhlmann
wrote a song called
"Frank's Wild Years"
for his 1983
Swordfishtrombones
album, then used the title (minus its apostrophe) for a
musical
play he wrote with his wife,
Kathleen Brennan
, and toured with in 1986. The
Franks Wild Years
album, drawn from the show, is subtitled, "un operachi romantico in two acts," though the songs themselves do not carry the plot. Rather, this is just the third installment in
Waits
' eccentric series of
Island Records
albums in which he seems most inspired by German art song and
carnival
music, presenting songs in spare, stripped-down arrangements consisting of instruments like marimba, baritone horn, and pump organ and singing in a strained voice that has been artificially compressed and distorted. The songs themselves often are conventional romantic vignettes, or would be minus the oddities of instrumentation, arrangement, and performance. For example,
"Innocent When You Dream,"
a song of disappointment in love and friendship, has a winning melody, but it is played in a seesaw arrangement of pump organ, bass, violin, and piano, and
sings it like an enraged drunk. (He points out the arbitrary nature of the arrangements by repeating
"Straight to the Top,"
done as a demented
rhumba
in act one, as a Vegas-style
Frank Sinatra
swing
tune in act two.) The result on record may not be theatrical, exactly, but it certainly is affected. It also has the quality of an inside joke that listeners are not being let in on. ~ William Ruhlmann
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