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

There are two aspects to this era that have to be noted, though I won’t focus on them. First, Tom Waits married Kathleen Brennan in between the release of Heartattack and Vine and Swordfishtrombones. Brennan is credited on all of Tom’s subsequent albums and generally shares songwriting credit with him. Waits in notoriously quiet about his personal life, and Brennan remains a mysterious figure. I’ve never seen her quoted or photographed anywhere. Since there’s a drastic change to Tom’s work after he met Brennan, it’s safe to assume she had something to do with that, whether as inspiration or as a direct collaborator. Waits fans like to debate the level of her involvement, but that seems fruitless to me. Clearly they’re happy and the partnership is working out for them, and that’s what matters. (Seriously, there are some Tom Waits fans who seem very angry at Kathleen Brennan, and I’ve never been clear as to why.)