Customer Reviews

Heart of Saturday Night

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

On Waits' second album his poetic lyrics are wrapped in a variety of jazzy, bluesy and folk styles with a hint of the orchestral on two tracks. Diamonds On My Windshield and The Ghosts of Saturday Night are spoken recitals, a form he would later explore over entire albums.

The most outstanding tracks, lyrically and melodically, are the tender San Diego Serenade with its elegant strings, the soulful and melancholy Shiver Me Timbers and the title track which in sentiment and imagery brings to mind his much later composition Jersey Girl.

The jazzy numbers include New Coat Of Paint and Semi Suite; Fumblin' With The Blues represents that genre whilst Drunk On The Moon is somewhere in-between. Of the other ballads, Please Call Me, Baby is an orchestrated outing whilst Depot Depot has the most arresting saxophone solos.

The Heart Of Saturday Night provides a satisfying cross-section of all the different styles Tom Waits would develop in his illustrious career, including on masterpieces like Rain Dogs, Heartattack and Vine and Mule Variations.

For fans, I recommend the book Innocent When You Dream: The Tom Waits Reader which documents his life and music up to 2004 and is perhaps better than a formal biography as it provides various perspectives from many different writers.

This album is his best for me. Two songs are enough to say it a masterpiece "San Diego Serenade" and "drunk on the moon"

This is some of the saddest music I've ever heard. Tom's second disc still holds up magnificantly. Back in his early years he was the bourbon/blues piano playing sad sack who could put into words what few others could. Yeah, we all know how he's changed his style over the years, but for me, this lounge lizard's first few disc's are what I consider some of the best music ever written. A timeless classic!

Great backup! Tom, of course careens through every tune skillfully. One might even think this guy is for real, but alas, it's an act. He's "in character" (i.e.acting out the part of leering wino/poet) and he's REALLY believable, but it's an illusion. A talented illusionist. Did somebody call me liar? I remember when Tom was a folksinger...seriously, I even saw him a few times in and around L.A., he switched routines and this one brought in the coin, so he stuck with it.

His backup band is pure gold...and Tom's dusky, whiskey and tobacco vocals would cut through any mud. These were great LP's (remember those) to drink beer to on those long cold Alaskan nights...long ago.

If so, get a jug of wine, sit on the floor and let this cd slip into your soul. A suffocating, stately meditation on missed connections. Why this isn't a staple on the jukebox of every crummy dive bar in America, I have no idea. Its about going out or away because thats what you know best-and feeling the emptiness that it invites. Piano, sax, crooning, the West Side Highway,your beat up car, 4am at the bodega, its all here. Waits has got to be the most eloquent articulator of loss Ive ever heard.

Still singing in the bluesy-jazzy serenade that he abandoned by his next album, this is Tom Waits the Barstool Philosopher at his best. The instrumentation is mostly his jazzy piano with occasional backing from strings, and a cabaret rhythm section. Some of his best early songs are on here, including New Coat of Paint, San Diego Serande, the incredible title track, and the winning semi-spoken-word piece, Diamonds On My Windshield (seemingly a blueprint for many of his later songs.) He never quite returned to songs of this particular type again (certainly not with this voice), and it is good to go back and see that he wrote great songs of this type. Moving away from the ballads and "midnight lullabies" on his first album, this collection houses a very poignant set of lyrics that set the scenes omnipresent on his first album (indeed, on all of them up to Swordfishtrombones) to poetry. There are quite a few good lines on this album, and his vocals are some of his most affecting. Although it's not as interesting or sprawling as some of his later, better albums, The Heart of Saturday Night is nonetheless a fine Tom Waits album, and is very good at what it does. Any fan will want to pick it up, and it truly is a soundtrack for when you are looking for the heart of Saturday night.

A more rough Waits than on the album Closing Time. Waits takes us to his universe of hookers, drunks, hobos and sailors on this briliant album. In songs like Fumblin' With the Blues and Drunk on the Moon you can allmost smell the filled ashtrays and old beer. This recording takes us from the depth of the urban jungle and back again. The title track have you imagining the almost abandoned diner, and the lonely sailor there. This is indeed a great album.

and put it in your car's CD player, and drive through the night to somewhere. Anywhere. It's one of the great recordings from the 1970s. Don't miss it. I picked it up in 1980 in vinyl. The lyrics are occaisionally insipid, but just as often dazzling.

Unlike in his later stuff, he sings clearly.

This is an Example of topnotch blues from the street, Raw and inspirational, unconventional and uncompromising.. This is music that goes straight to the heart than stays there long after the Cd has stopped...

Tom Waits have always had a gift of originality and uniqueness in his music, a Gift that is sorely lacking from modern-day music like Britney Spears and Back Street Boys.. He sings about life in a way that everyone can reckognize and relate to.. I know that I certainly can.. Especially with the song "San Diego Serenade" and "Ghost of saturday night"...

All in all well spent money if you like this kinda thing:) and even an interesting buy if you never have heard Tom Waits before..

This is a man whose music is truly and considerably down to earth and REAL..

This is a really good album. It has one of two effects on me. It either depresses me or makes me happy. It's fun to share your sorrow with Tom. All the songs are really good except "Semi Suite." It gets kind of tedious after a while, but it's still better than what most people write. So, buy this album, and enjoy it in good health. Or, good sorrow.