Joined: Tue Nov 30, 2004 4:02 am Posts: 44183 Location: New York Gender: Male
chicago is a much better song but that performance certainly kicked the snot out of letterman's.
_________________ "Better the occasional faults of a Government that lives in a spirit of charity than the consistent omissions of a Government frozen in the ice of its own indifference."--FDR
The second performance is pretty much what a live show goes like...except (in my opinion) with much better songs. These performances both kind of accentuated for me the fact that these songs are built on the most tired of Famous Daves-fodder templates. He just sort of muffled all of the most interesting qualities of his music...from the theatric flair to the cubist bizarritude to the humanist melancholy...leaving only just enough of them that it's still recognizably a Tom Waits album. Not bad songs, and a few are genuinely awesome, but it's still my least favorite thing he's done since Blue Valentine.
Of course, if I had to chose only ten albums to keep and never hear anything else again, they'd be Heart Attack through Real Gone. That's not an exaggeration. So the bar was pretty impossibly high going in.
Wow, I had to go back and listen to the album version of "Raised". It is VERY forgettable on the album, but that performance was incredible. It boggles my mind how I'm the only one who thinks "Chicago" was awful. It was neutered, a completely generic arrangement, Tom's cadence didn't work, and his voice had absolutely no power. Take all those characteristics and absolutely reverse them, and you have the "Raised" take.
_________________ Chicago 1998/Indianapolis 2000/Champaign 2003/Indianapolis 2003/Toledo 2004/Kitchener 2005/Chicago 2006/London 2007/New York City 2008/Cleveland 2010
Joined: Tue Nov 30, 2004 4:02 am Posts: 44183 Location: New York Gender: Male
I didn't think it was awful, but people are hardly talking about how amazing Chicago was.
_________________ "Better the occasional faults of a Government that lives in a spirit of charity than the consistent omissions of a Government frozen in the ice of its own indifference."--FDR
I didn't think it was awful, but people are hardly talking about how amazing Chicago was.
I didn't say that everyone was saying it was amazing. However, since you tempted me, I thought this afforded the opportunity to see what kinds of adjectives we use on RM:
Dammit, I'm definitely the weak link...need to be more creative!
_________________ Chicago 1998/Indianapolis 2000/Champaign 2003/Indianapolis 2003/Toledo 2004/Kitchener 2005/Chicago 2006/London 2007/New York City 2008/Cleveland 2010
Wow, I had to go back and listen to the album version of "Raised". It is VERY forgettable on the album, but that performance was incredible. It boggles my mind how I'm the only one who thinks "Chicago" was awful. It was neutered, a completely generic arrangement, Tom's cadence didn't work, and his voice had absolutely no power. Take all those characteristics and absolutely reverse them, and you have the "Raised" take.
I can´t see how his voice had no power....i liked Chicago a lot. Still didn´t care much for the last record to be honest...but im sure it will grow on me. Im listening to Bone Machine these days
Joined: Wed Oct 20, 2004 5:55 pm Posts: 11320 Location: Brooklyn Gender: Male
It was a rad performance. However, I prefer the song on the album. Though, admittedly, it was a bit limp in comparison to the Fallon performance.
But having never seen (and rarely heard) Tom live, I thought Letterman was a fun (and indeed rad) performance. Nothing wrong with a guy trying to rediscover his art and/or try something new. If Tom didn't experiment, his career never would never have made it out of the early 80s.
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