Obsessive rituals of youth.

It's all boils down to pants. Blue jeans, specifically. See, back before we had "pre-washed", "stone-washed", "acid-washed" or any of them other variants, we had plain 'ole blue jeans.

And let me tell you...they were very blue and very tough. There was a lengthy (and somewhat painful) breakin process. Even after those first two or three washings, a nasty thigh-chafe could persist. To ensure a more perfect fit, some kids would go so far as to take a bath with their new jeans on, spending the rest of the day walking around in wet Levi's, creating a sort of custom denim body mould. In time, the harshness would fade and your pair of jeans would take on their true character. Each pair was different. Some looser (or tighter) in the seat. Some softer than others. No matter what breakin technique you used, sooner or later your jeans arrived at their ultimate state. They became your current favorite pair. More than that, they pretty much defined your idea of 'blue jeans'. Their "jeans-ness" had peaked (I told you this was obsessive).

The point here is not to toss out an easy cliché, comparing the music of Tom Waits to a well-worn pair of jeans. That wouldn't be fair to either Mr. Waits or the legacy of Levi Straus. Plus, sometimes Waits' music just isn't all that comfortable.

No, what triggered memories of respectful blue jean husbandry was the idea that occurred to me after several listens to Waits' latest, Real Gone. It was that, like that perfect pair, this record defines Tom Waits' "Waits-ness".

Tom Waits is an artist who draws on so many aspects of culture, musical & sociological, United States & World, that you can think of him as a one-man melting pot.

So on this extremely Waits-y recording, we have field hollers mixed with turntables (Waits' son Casey, on "Top Of The Hill"), slinky guitar (Marc Ribot is all over the place, turning in some fine solos and atmospherics), sleazy blues ("Shake"), wacky & busted sorta-tangos, lots of junky percussion and stories of love, death, coping and lust.