Franks Wild Years

Tom Waits

Product Details

• Audio CD (June 15, 1990)
• Original Release Date: August 1987
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Island
• ASIN: B000001FSR
• Also Available in: Audio Cassette  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (55 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #8,490 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com essential recording
All the voices in Tom Waits' head come out on this CD: the growler (of course), the crooner, the preacher, the screecher, and the Vegas cheese ball. The instrumentation is equally eclectic. (Yep, that's Waits himself playing the "rooster" on the album's best song, "I'll Be Gone.") More memorable moments: "Innocent When You Dream" (both times), the vocal howling at the end of "Blow Wind Blow," and the lovely coughing fit after "I'll Take New York." Frank's Wild Years is the musical remains of a theatrical collaboration between Waits and Kathleen Brennan, originally staged in 1986. It contains nuggets of important practical advice, sure--"never drive a car when you're dead" (from "Telephone Call from Istanbul")--but mostly these songs are fantasy freaks. Frank's is big-time dreamer. It's a dreamy album. Sweet dreams. --Dan Leone

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars THE ICEMAN COMETH, July 25, 2002

By	K. H. Orton (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I first heard this back in college. At the time, it blew away antything else I was hearing & I think it single handedly changed my tastes in music. 15 years later I never tire of it. Which is probably why I'm writing this review.

Critics would have you believe this is the third installment of a trilogy that started with SWORDFISHTROMBONES. If anything, it stands as a precursor to the work he later did with Robert Wilson. This album is the music from a performance piece Waits wrote with his wife & collaborator, Kathleen Brennan. It played to sold out performances at the Steppenwolf Theatre in the mid 80's & if I had known who the hell Tom Waits was then, I'd certainly be in the 1st row.

"Hang On St. Christopher" comes off as a reckless itinerary for a fugitive of justice. The sparse use of horns coupled with Mark Ribot's signature guitar aid & abet for a long day's journey into night.

"Temptation" has to be one of my favorite Waits'tunes featuring a demented falsetto & chorus as seductive as the subject matter. If Stephen Foster wrote a song based off William Kennedy's IRONWEED, it might have sounded like "Innocent When You Dream". An undeiable classic, right up there with the likes of "Time " & "Tom Traubert's Blues".

Without a doubt, there's a pervading sense of gloom overiding this album but every song is a gem if you take the time to dust it off. From the drunken "RAWHIDE" trappings of "Yesterday Is Here" to the delerious Film Noir of "Telephone Call From Instanbul" , this album is a virtual mugshot of Waits at his height of his powers. If anyone could write a musical of Eugene O'Neill's ICEMAN COMETH, it's Tom Waits. And I have to say, FRANK'S WILD YEARS is the sonic equivalent. Its certainly one of the most ambitious records of his career. A roadtrip movie for the damned.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Tripping over your shoelaces and falling into heaven, drunk, June 27, 2000

By	happydogpotatohead "happydogpotatohead" (New Orleans, LA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

One of the few five-stars in my book. This was the second Waits album I bought and it has remained with me lo these many years later.

Waits' songwriting has already been rightfully praised by other reviewers. What I want to talk about is the music and arrangements that create the atmosphere that sustains this album. The accordion on "Blow Wind Blow" that sounds like it was lifted straight from a 1930's era Popeye cartoon. The clanking, squawking, grinding guitars and the eerie wobble of the Optigan, a toy organ that Waits uses in ways its makers never intended. (The rooster on "I'll Be Gone" is actually from the Optigan.)

There's more I could mention. The Albert Ayleresque intro to "Temptation." The dark, spare resonance of "Yesterday is Here" which sounds like it's being played by a bum with a broken guitar at a deserted railroad crossing. "Please Wake Me Up," (a plea not to be awakened during a dream) drowned in waves of wobbling pump organ with Waits' vocal sounding as if it was recorded over the phone. The frightful apotheosis of "Straight To The Top (Vegas)" and "I'll Take New York," which sounds like the soundtrack to the crucifixion of a bad lounge singer.

Nothing is normal here, which fits in with the theme of dreams. And underlying everything is the same kind of sorrow that motivates the best American music; the blues, in short. It's about wandering, whether in your mind or in reality or both.

If you have to be lost, it might as well be with Tom Waits, who can tell a shaggy dog story better than anyone.

Tom Waits is an oddity, complete unto himself, and probably one of the greatest artists America has ever produced, although most Americans don't realize it. This is one of his best and most completely realized pieces of art.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the True Great Albums of Our Time - (or any time), October 18, 2004

By	G P Padillo "paolo" (Portland, ME United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

One of the greatest - maybe the greatest - album Mr. Waits has given us. Scratch that, one of the best albums anyone has given us.

A harrowing, modern opera with a pathetic Everyman for a hero, Frank's Wild Years has been burnt into many of our musical memories for almost 20 years. From initial desperate disappearing act to the giddy leave taking of one's senses, helpless resignation and ultimately tragic denouement this album has haunted me from its first, nearly incomprehensible hearing to today. A remarkable achievement that has not lost a drop of its power or relevance. You're innocent when you dream . . .