Tom Waits Week: Things Get Weird (1983-1993)

At this point, the best known song on the album is “Way Down in the Hole”, which served as the opening theme of The Wire. (Each season used a different version of the song, with Tom’s original serving in Season Two.) It’s a song about falling into temptation and finding salvation. Frank’s Wild Years also has a pair of songs that appear twice each, in different styles. “Straight to the Top” is presented first as a Rumba, and then later as a Vegas-style performance. And “Innocent When You Dream” appears in a bar room version, and it actually sounds like a bunch of drunks are sinking it together. Then the album closes with a version that sounds like it’s being played on an old, scratchy record, lending a real emotion to it. “Cold Cold Ground” is about a man preparing to die and is easily one of Waits’ best songs. And I’ve always loved “Telephone Call from Istanbul” and its insane parade of advice (“Never trust a man in a blue trenchcoat / never drive a car when you’re dead.”).