Significant longplayers from yesteryear
30 September 2025
Legendary barfly crooner TOM WAITS (aged 75 now) released his
9th LP RAINDOGS on 30 September 1985, today 40 years ago.
A concept record about the urban dispossessed of New York City.
Rain Dogs is generally considered the middle album of a trilogy
that includes Swordfishtrombones and Franks Wild Years.
Tom Waits: “I didn’t really want to be part of a clique or a niche. But I also was
looking for my own voice, as a writer, y’know? And a world I could call my own.”
Artwork: The man on the cover looks definitely like Waits, but the photo is actually
one of a series taken by the Swedish photographer Anders Petersen at Café Lehmitz (near the Hamburg red-light street called Reeperbahn, where The Beatles used to play gigs in small clubs in the early days) in the late 1960s. The man and woman on the front sleeve are called Rose and Lilly.
Rolling Stone Magazine: “Rain Dogs insists on nosing its way
around the barrooms and back alleys Waits has so often visited
before.”
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