Brawlers  (64:14)
	01	Lie To Me						02:10
	02	Low Down						04:15
	03	2:19						05:02
	04	Fish In The Jailhouse						04:22
	05	Bottom Of The World						05:42
	06	Lucinda						04:52
	07	Ain't Goin' Down To The Well						02:28
	08	Lord I've Been Changed						02:28
	09	Puttin' On The Dog						03:39
	10	Road To Peace						07:17
	11	All The Time						04:33
	12	The Return Of Jackie And Judy						03:28
	13	Walk Away						02:43
	14	Sea Of Love						03:43
	15	Buzz Fledderjohn						04:12
	16	Rains On Me						03:20
Bawlers  (69:26)
	01	Bend Down The Branches						01:06
	02	You Can Never Hold Back Spring						02:26
	03	Long Way Home						03:10
	04	Widow's Grove						04:58
	05	Little Drop Of Poison						03:09
	06	Shiny Things						02:20
	07	World Keeps Turning						04:16
	08	Tell It To Me						03:08
	09	Never Let Go						03:13
	10	Fannin Street						05:01
	11	Little Man						04:33
	12	It's Over						04:40
	13	If I Have To Go						02:15
	14	Goodnight Irene						04:47
	15	The Fall Of Troy						03:00
	16	Take Care Of All My Children						02:31
	17	Down There By The Train						05:38
	18	Danny Says						03:05
	19	Jayne's Blue Wish						02:29
	20	Young At Heart						03:41
Bastards  (55:35)
	01	What Keeps Mankind Alive						02:09
	02	Children's Story						01:42
	03	Heigh Ho						03:32
	04	Army Ants						03:25
	05	Book Of Moses						02:49
	06	Bone Chain						01:03
	07	Two Sisters						04:55
	08	First Kiss						02:40
	09	Dog Door						02:43
	10	Redrum						01:12
	11	Nirvana						02:12
	12	Home I'll Never be						02:28
	13	Poor Little Lamb						01:43
	14	Altar Boy						02:48
	15	The Pontiac						01:54
	16	Spidey's Wild Ride						02:03
	17	King Kong						05:29
	18	On The Road						04:14
	19	Dog Treat						02:56
	20	Missing My Son						03:38

When I was small I always thought that songwriters sat alone at upright pianos in cramped smoky little rooms with a bottle and an ashtray and everything came in the window blew through them and came out of the piano as a song…and in a weird way that is exactly what happens.

What’s Orphans? I don’t know. Orphans is a dead end kid driving a coffin with big tires across the Ohio River wearing welding goggles and a wife beater with a lit firecracker in his ear.

At the center of this record is my voice. I try my best to chug, stomp, weep, whisper, moan, wheeze, scat, blurt, rage, whine, and seduce. With my voice, I can sound like a girl, the boogieman, a Theremin, a cherry bomb, a clown, a doctor, a murderer…I can be tribal. Ironic. Or disturbed. My voice is really my instrument.

Kathleen and I wanted the record to be like emptying our pockets on the table after an evening of gambling, burglary, and cow tipping. We enjoy strange couplings, that’s how we got together. We wanted Orphans to be like a shortwave radio show where the past is sequenced with the future, consisting of things you find on the ground, in this world and no world, or maybe the next world. Whatever you imagine that to be.

If a record really works at all, it should be made like a homemade doll with tinsel for hair and seashells for ears stuffed with candy and money. Or like a good woman’s purse with a Swiss army knife and a snake bite kit.

Orphans contains songs for all occasions. Some of the songs were written in turmoil and recorded at night in a moving car, others were written in hotel rooms and recorded in Hollywood during big conflamas. That’s when conflict weds drama. At any rate these are the ones that survived the flood and were rescued from the branches of trees after the water’s retreat.

Gathering all this material together was like rounding up chickens at the beach. It’s not like you go into vault and check out what you need. Most of it was lost or buried under the house. Some of the tapes I had to pay ransom for to a plumber in Russia. You fall into the vat. We started to write just to climb out of the vat. Then you start listening and sorting and start writing in response to what you hear. And more recording. And then you get bit by a spider, go down the gopher hole, and make a whole different record. That was the process pretty much the last three years.

Then we met Karl Derfler, a wizard engineer who works at Bay Side Studios in Richmond, CA, in the science fiction part of town. A battlefield medic, he did a Lazarus on a number of the songs and recorded all the new material.

On Orphans there is a mambo about a convict who breaks out of jail with a fishbone, a gospel train song about Charlie Whitman and John Wilkes Boothe, a delta blues about a disturbing neighbor, a spoken word piece about a woman who was struck by lightening, an 18th century Scottish madrigal about murderous sibling rivalry, an American backwoods a cappella about a hanging. Even a song by Jack Kerouac and a spiritual with my own personal petition to the Lord with prayer…There’s even a show tune about an old altar boy and a rockabilly song about a young man who’s begging to be lied to.

I think you will find more singing and dancing here than usual. But I hope fans of more growling, more warbling, more barking, more screeching won’t be disappointed either.

Tom Waits
August 2006

Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers and Bastards is a spectacular musical journey, which visits most every genre of American song tradition.

The diverse 56-song, 3-disc collection captures the full scope of Tom Waits’ shamanic powers as a vocalist, literary lyricist, romantic melodist, innovative arranger and pioneer of sonic worlds.

This deluxe limited edition release, written and produced by Waits and his longtime collaborator and wife, Kathleen Brennan contains 30 new and never before heard recordings, plus rare songs taken from collaborations with artists in film, literature and music—complete with a 94-page handmade booklet of lyrics and rare photos. The set, which took over three years to compile and record, is grouped by genre with songs guaranteed to move and shake the heart, the body, the mind and most unquestionably the soul.

Each of the CD’s are separately arranged and sub-titled – “Brawlers,” “Bawlers” and “Bastards” to encapsulate the full range of Waits’ nomadic scope of musical styles.

Brawlers is packed with full throated juke joint stomp, boogies and riotous blues. It’s roadhouse Waits,..He chugs, whistles and screams. It’s primal steaming surreal blues. He channels the Stones, Beefheart, Muddy Waters and T-Rex. One new one, “Low Down” is raw garage rock with Waits’ 20 year old son, Casey on drums and San Francisco’s white trash blues icon, Ron Hacker, on guitar.

Bawlers – Lonesome ballads about the sadness at the end of the road are framed by tender songs of innocence and green hope. The plaintive hill country laments of, “Tell It To Me” and the cautionary tale, “Fannin Street” blend poignantly with saloon songs of betrayal and despair (“The World Keeps Turning”) Celtic waltzes and bitter cabaret torch songs like, “It’s Over” and “Little Drop Of Poison”, all of which explore what the heart gives and what it takes away.

Bastards – explores the strange and unusual side of Waits, who is peculiar by nature. Contained here is experimental music and scary tales. There are uncategorizable diversions into this dark side. It tunnels beneath the city with spiels, rants, mouth rhythms, including a poignant reminiscence of car ownership, a Ramones cover and a version of Daniel Johnston’s, “King Kong,” a disturbing bedtime story,(not for children faint of heart),and a poem by Charles Bukowski. It has insects, murder, drowning and insanity. Or as ma says, the full dinner menu.



Orphans: Liner Notes

brawler musicians

Anges Amar - Whistles
Bobby Baloo - Boulders, Cowbells
Seth Ford-Young - Bass
Joe Gore - Guitar
Charlie Musselwhite - Harmonica
Marc Ribot - Guitar
Larry Taylor - Bass
Casey Waits - Drums
Tom Waits - Vocal, Guitar, Keyboard, Percussion, etc.
Dave Alvin - Guitar
Andrew Borger - Percussion
Brain - Percussion
Ralph Carney - Sax
Les Claypool - Bass
Steve Foreman - Percussion
Brett Gurewitz - Guitar
Ron Hacker - Guitar
John Hammond - Harmonica
Stephen Hodges - Percussion
Gino Robair - Percussion
Jeff Sloan - Percussion
Larry Lalonde - Guitar


bawler musicians

Bobby Black - Steel Guitar
Seth Ford-Young - Bass
Joe Gore - Guitar
Carla Kihlstedt - Violin
Nic Phelps - Horns
Larry Taylor – Bass
Ray Armando - Percussion
Andrew Borger - Percussion
Matt Brubeck - Bass
Dan Cantrell - Accordion
Ralph Carney - Saxes
Bent Clausen - Banjo
Jimmy Cleveland - Trombone
Harry Cody - Banjo
Greg Cohen - Bass
Chris Grady - Trumpet
Brett Gurewitz - Guitar
Billy Higgins - Drums
Art Hillery - Piano
Trevor Horn – Bass
Adam Lane - Bass
Charlie Musselwhite - Harmonica
Eric Perney - Bass
Dan Plonsey - Clarinet
Steve Prutsman - Piano
Bebe Risenfors - Clarinet
Gino Robair - Percussion
Mike Silverman - Bass
Nolan Smith - Trumpet
Matthew Sperry - Bass
Francis Thumm - Piano
Leroy Vinnegar - Bass
Sullivan Waits - Guitar
Tom Yoder – Trombone

bastard musicians

Ara Anderson - Trumpet
Michael Blair - Drums, Percussion
Brain - Percussion
Matt Brubeck - Bass
Crispin Cioe - Sax
Bent Clausen - Piano
Greg Cohen - Bass
Eddie Davis - Banjo
Darrel Devore – Circular Violin
Mitchell Froom - Chamberlain
Bob Funk - Trombone
Arno Hecht - Saxes
Bart Hopkins - Bamboo Clarinet
Carla Kihlstedt - Violin
Guy Klesevik – Accordion
Gary Knowlton - Keyboards
Mike Knowlton - Guitar
Larry LaLonde - Guitar
Mark Linkous - Guitar, Drums, Bass
Paul “Hollywood” Litteral - Trumpet
Charlie Musselwhite - Harmonica
Tom Nunn - The Bug
Marc Ribot - Guitar
Bebe Riesnfors - Clarinet
Colin Stetson - Sax
Larry Taylor - Bass
Richard Waters - Waterphone
Casey Waits - Drums
Tom Waits - Vocals, Percussion, Pump Organ

Brawlers
Lie To Me Tom Waits / Kathleen Brennan Jalma Music (ASCAP)
LowDown Tom Waits / Kathleen Brennan Jalma Music (ASCAP)
2:19 Tom Waits / Kathleen Brennan Jalma Music (ASCAP)
Fish In The Jailhouse Tom Waits / Kathleen Brennan Jalma Music (ASCAP)
Bottom Of The World Tom Waits / Kathleen Brennan Jalma Music (ASCAP)
Lucinda Tom Waits / Kathleen Brennan Jalma Music (ASCAP)
Ain't Goin' Down To The Well H. Ledbetter / A. Lomax / J. Lomax, Sr. TRO-Folkways Music Publishers, Inc. (BMI), Admin by The Richmond Organization (BMI)
Lord I've Been Changed Traditional Traditional
Puttin' On The Dog Tom Waits / Kathleen Brennan Jalma Music (ASCAP)
Road To Peace Tom Waits / Kathleen Brennan Jalma Music (ASCAP)
All The Time Tom Waits / Kathleen Brennan Jalma Music (ASCAP)
The Return Of Jackie and Judy Joey Ramone, Johnny Ramone, Dee Dee Ramone WB Music Corp. (ASCAP) / Taco Tunes (ASCAP), admin by WB Music Corp. (ASCAP)
Walk Away Tom Waits / Kathleen Brennan Jalma Music (ASCAP)
Sea Of Love Philip Babtiste / George Khoury TRIO Music Co. (BMI) / TEK Publishing (BMI) / Fort Knox Music, Inc. (BMI)
Buzz Fledderjohn Tom Waits / Kathleen Brennan Jalma Music (ASCAP)
Rains On Me Tom Waits / Chuck E. Weiss Jalma Music (ASCAP) / Chuck E. Weiss Music (ASCAP) / Rykomusic, Inc. (ASCAP), admin by Jalma Music (ASCAP) / ICG

Bawlers
Bend Down The Branches Tom Waits / Kathleen Brennan Jalma Music (ASCAP)
You Can Never Hold Back Spring Tom Waits / Kathleen Brennan Jalma Music (ASCAP)
Long Way Home Tom Waits / Kathleen Brennan Jalma Music (ASCAP)
Widow's Grove Tom Waits / Kathleen Brennan Jalma Music (ASCAP)
Little Drop of Poison Tom Waits / Kathleen Brennan Jalma Music (ASCAP)
Shiny Things Tom Waits / Kathleen Brennan Jalma Music (ASCAP)
World Keeps Turning Tom Waits / Kathleen Brennan Jalma Music (ASCAP)
Tell It To Me Tom Waits / Kathleen Brennan Jalma Music (ASCAP)
Never Let Go Tom Waits / Kathleen Brennan Jalma Music (ASCAP)
Fannin Street Tom Waits / Kathleen Brennan Jalma Music (ASCAP)
Little Man Teddy Edwards Copyright Control
It's Over Tom Waits / Kathleen Brennan Jalma Music (ASCAP)
If I Have To Go Tom Waits / Kathleen Brennan Jalma Music (ASCAP)
Goodnight Irene H. Ledbetter / J. Lomax TRO-Ludlow Music, Inc (BMI), admin by The Richmond Organization (BMI)
The Fall Of Troy Tom Waits / Kathleen Brennan Jalma Music (ASCAP)
Take Care Of All My Children Tom Waits / Kathleen Brennan Jalma Music (ASCAP)
Down There By The Train Tom Waits / Kathleen Brennan Jalma Music (ASCAP)
Danny Says Joey Ramone, Johnny Ramone, Dee Dee Ramone WB Music Corp. (ASCAP) / Taco Tunes (ASCAP), admin by WB Music Corp. (ASCAP)
Jayne's Blue Wish Tom Waits / Kathleen Brennan Jalma Music (ASCAP)
Young At Heart Carolyn Leigh / Johnny Richards Cherio Corp. (BMI) (U.S.) / Ocheri Publishing Corp. (ASCAP) (outside U.S.) / Junes Tunes (BMI) U.S.

Bastards
What Keeps Mankind Alive Kurt Weill / Bertolt Brecht Weill-Brecht-Harms Music Co. Inc, (ASCAP) / Kurt Weill Foundation for Music, Inc. (ASCAP), admin by WB Music Corp.
Children's Story Georg Buchner Public Domain
Heigh Ho Frank E. Churchill / Larry Morey Bourne Music (ASCAP)
Army Ants Tom Waits / Kathleen Brennan / Audubon Society / World Book Encyclopedia Jalma Music (ASCAP) , Audubon Society / World Book Encyclopedia
Books Of Moses Alexander Lee Spence Alexander Lee Spence Music (BMI), admin by Maryanne Sarah Sheley Music (BMI) / EMI Blackwood Music Inc. (BMI)
Bone Chain Tom Waits / Kathleen Brennan Jalma Music (ASCAP)
Two Sisters Traditional Traditional
First Kiss Tom Waits / Kathleen Brennan Jalma Music (ASCAP)
Dog Door Tom Waits Kathleen Brennan / Mark Linkous Jalma Music (ASCAP) / WB Music Corp and Spirit Ditch Music (ASCAP)
Redrum Tom Waits / Kathleen Brennan Jalma Music (ASCAP)
Nirvana Charles Bukowski Copyright Control
Home I'll Never Be Jack Kerouac / Tom Waits Jalma Music (ASCAP) / Duluoz Publishing (ASCAP)
Poor Little Lamb Tom Waits / Kennedy Jalma Music (ASCAP) / Taft / Barish Music (ASCAP), admin by Jalma Music (ASCAP) / Famous Music (ASCAP)
Altar Boy Tom Waits / Kathleen Brennan Jalma Music (ASCAP)
The Pontiac Tom Waits / Kathleen Brennan Jalma Music (ASCAP)
Spidey's Wild Ride Tom Waits / Kathleen Brennan Jalma Music (ASCAP)
King Kong Daniel Johnston Eternal Yip Eye Music (BMI), admin by BUG MUSIC (BMI)
On The Road Tom Waits / Jack Kerouac Jalma Music (ASCAP) / Duluoz Publishing (ASCAP)
Dog Treat [Hidden Track] Tom Waits / Kathleen Brennan Jalma Music (ASCAP)
Missing My Son [Hidden Track] Tom Waits / Kathleen Brennan Jalma Music (ASCAP)