01	Somewhere (from "West Side Story")						03:53
	02	Red Shoes by the Drugstore						03:14
	03	Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis						04:33
	04	Romeo Is Bleeding						04:52
	05	$29.00						08:15
	06	Wrong Side of the Road						05:14
	07	Whistlin' Past the Graveyard						03:17
	08	Kentucky Avenue						04:49
	09	A Sweet Bullet from a Pretty Blue Gun						05:36
	10	Blue Valentines						05:50

Blue Valentine, 1978
(P) & c 1978 Elektra Entertainment 162 for the US
and WEA International Inc. for the world outside the US.
c 1978 Fifth Floor Music, Inc. (ASCAP)

Tom Waits: vocals, aucoustic piano, electric guitar
Da Willie Gonga: Yamaha electric piano ("Red Shoes By The Drugstore"), Yamaha electric grand piano ("Christmas Card From A Hooker In Minneapolis", $ 29.00")
Rick Lawson: drums ("Red Shoes By The Drugstore", "$ 29.00")
Roland Bautista: electric guitar ("Red Shoes By The Drugstore", "$ 29.00")
Byron Miller: bass ("Red Shoes By The Drugstore", "$ 29.00")
Frank Vicari: tenor sax ("Romeo Is Bleeding", "Wrong Side Of The Road")
Ray Crawford: electric guitar ("Romeo Is Bleeding", "Wrong Side Of The Road", "Blue Valentines")
Charles Kynard: organ ("Romeo Is Bleeding", "Wrong Side Of The Road")
Jim Hughart: bass ("Romeo Is Bleeding", "Wrong Side Of The Road")
Chip White: drums ("Romeo Is Bleeding", "Wrong Side Of The Road")
Bobbey Hall: congas ("Romeo Is Bleeding")
Harold Battiste: piano ("Whistlin' Past The Graveyard", "A Sweet Little Bullet From A Pretty Blue Gun")
"Shine Robinson: electric guitar ("Whistlin' Past The Graveyard", "A Sweet Little Bullet From A Pretty Blue Gun")
Herbert Hardesty: tenor sax ("Whistlin' Past The Graveyard", "A Sweet Little Bullet From A Pretty Blue Gun")
Scott Edwards: bass ("Whistlin' Past The Graveyard", "A Sweet Little Bullet From A Pretty Blue Gun")
Earl Palmer: drums ("Whistlin' Past The Graveyard", "A Sweet Little Bullet From A Pretty Blue Gun")
Bob Alcivar: orchestra arranger and conductor ("Kentucky Avenue")
Bones Howe: engineer
Geoff Howe: second engineer
Ralph Osborne: second engineer
Chuck E. Weiss: "support and encouragement"
Louis "The Mug" Lista: thanks
Dee Barnett: thanks
Diane Quinn: thanks ("Steel That Black Jockey Off The Lawn")
Mary Simon: custom car painting and design on the Thunderbird
Ron Coro: art direction and design
Bill Franks: hand lettering
Elliot Gilbert: photography


BLUE VALENTINE

Year Of Release: 1978
Record rating = 8
Overall rating = 11

Multiple character profiles, a voice that's even deeper than usual and a stupid Broadway send-up to top it off. Delicious!
Best song: $29.00

Track listing: 1) Somewhere; 2) Red Shoes By The Drugstore; 3) Christmas Card From A Hooker In Minneapolis; 4) Romeo Is Bleeding; 5) $29.00; 6) Wrong Side Of The Road; 7) Whistlin' Past The Graveyard; 8) Kentucky Avenue; 9) Little Bullet From A Pretty Blue Gun; 10) Blue Valentines.

Okay, that's a serious improvement. We're slowly nearing The Change, although most of the songs here are still in Tom's usual style. The album starts on an alarming note - with Tom's rendition of 'Somewhere', from West Side Story, no less. He'd really gone seriously Hollywood by that point, and I bet many of his fans were seriously worried about whether the guy would finally choke over that sappy schlock. Not that he pulls it off bad or anything - the voice can't be beat, and judging by Hollywood standards, this here 'Somewhere' gets a five out of five, but let's face it... generic Hollywood stuff is NOT what we want to hear from Tom. Not us the people who tend to lull more towards the rockier/bluesier edge of things, at least. So for all of us that's a bad start.
But it's followed by a good end! And actually more than that. Blue Valentine actually can be taken as Small Change Vol. 2, with slightly less involving melodies, but a sharper, darker and more menacing edge. Some - a lot, really - of the tracks are positively bluesy, with a real gritty band accompanying Tom and bringing in ounces and at times even pounds of electric guitar, while Tom himself mainly discards his 'complaining' intonations of the past for a new type of vocal delivery - shrill, hoarse, aggressive, and slightly cunning at the same time. Blue Valentine, then, does the trick of introducing the DANGEROUS Tom Waits to us, not just the solemn introspective minstrel of yore, but more like a pricky dark angel waiting for us around every dark corner, crawling from behind and whispering his evil tales into our ears. And evil tales they are. 'Somewhere' opens the album with a strangely fake statement of optimism; 'Blue Valentines' closes the album with a strangely sincere statement of pessimism. In between are sandwiched eight songs of evil, woe, gruesomeness and aggression.
The titles speak for themselves - 'Little Bullet From A Pretty Blue Gun', anyone? The central epic of the album, though, is the eight-minute long '$29.00', telling the creepy story of a poor girl mugged and injured by street bandits. What's special about the song? Nothing, I guess. Not on first glance. But then you glance at the lyrics, you pay closer attention to Tom's ragged hoarse bellowing, you notice tiny little overtones in the playing and you realize the uniqueness of this experience - just like Steely Dan crossbred sarcastic socio-biting lyrics with 'routine' jazzy arrangements to unexpected results, Tom tells these dark alley stories with a typical 'dark alley arrangement'. And that's pretty scary. And the 'twenty nine dollars and an alligator purse' line is bound to stick to you forever.
In general, Tom really sticks to playing a 'self-alienating' part on the record. Most of the tell-tale tricks present the story from a neutral point of view - and these are stories of street hassle ('Romeo Is Bleeding'), poverty ('Red Shoes By The Drugstore') and suchlike. The actual presentation form does differ, though; within the given formula, what with all of its narrowness, there's still enough space to make one song sound different from another. 'Red Shoes By The Drugstore' is more or less in the general style of Tom's beatnik rants, like 'Diamonds On My Windshield'. But then there's the soft bleeding ballad 'Christmas Card From A Hooker In Minneapolis', again, a title which tells you more than you should know before the actual song begins. This one is a real tear-jerker, so don't listen to it too much unless you're not too sensitive.
And then there's 'Romeo Is Bleeding' which is melodic and bouncy and jazzy, and 'Wrong Side Of The Road' which is similar, just much more slower. And my second favourite - the magnificent 'Whistlin' Past The Graveyard', driven by a menacing sax riff, where Tom throws a real fit, culminating in the infamous 'I'm a real motherhubbard papa one eyed jack' refrain. Ooh, that voice...
So basically, well, basically you know I can't write too much about this stuff I sure don't know what else to write about it. You gotta have a lil' tiny shiny place inside your heart which should lock into one whole with the album, I know you probably have it somewhere. Too bad there's not too many hooks, but the time isn't ripe yet. It's the time to soak in the atmosphere which is really seriously different from the previous records. It's... well, I mean, take your average cabaret recording and then, whoopla, presto-change-o, suddenly all the gloss and formulaicness and artificial flavour are gone and are replaced by the Real Thing. That's hard to imagine, I know, and it sounds rather abstract, but hey, I'm not really asking to treasure Blue Valentine as a chef-d'aoeuvre for eternity. Trash it if you like, or concentrate on Swordfishtrombones. To me, a record like this actually says more about Tom's genius than his 'bizarre' period - not to sound denigrative, but in a certain sense, it's easier to play a weirdo than take such a generic musical form as 'cabaret boogie' (my very approximate term for this stuff) and render it in such a way that allows virtually no competition. Yup, that's the way life goes.