Beginning with the creeping "Singapore," there’s a certain dark, mysterious jubilance throughout Tom Waits’ "Rain Dogs." Waits excitedly lays things down on this track as if he were a mad pirate with a glint in his eye, so much so that one could expect an evil cackle after the lines "We sail tonight for Singapore, take your blankets from the floor / Wash your mouth out by the door, the whole town’s made of iron ore!" Fittingly, after a nice double-bass saunter, the track fades out to the sound of stormy weather and we’re left not knowing what to expect next.
Though two songs from this album ("Jockey Full of Bourbon" and "Tango ’til They’re Sore") bookend the beautiful Jim Jarmusch film "Down by Law," the swampy "Clap Hands" would not have been out of place in its black-and-white, panoramic cinematography, particularly the scene where the three escapees are sailing along the Louisiana bayous ("They all went to heaven in a little row boat"). Marc Ribot’s guitar solo cuts in to the side of the song exquisitely here, while the marimba is utilised to percussive perfection. While "Cemetery Polka" sounds like an after-hours gathering behind the scenes at a circus, on "Jockey Full of Bourbon," Ribot again drops the song down smoothly, and once you’ve seen Jarmusch’s film, in one’s mind it’s hard to separate the song from those lovely rolling shots of the streets, cemeteries and balconies of New Orleans. Everything about this number is slick: its swinging tempo, its ability to set its own scene so well, the harmony of the whole ensemble, and, specifically, the ongoing dialogue forged between Waits and Ribot.
"Tango ’til They’re Sore" clearly belongs to the lost, small hours of a near-empty bar where the smoke is still settling, as Waits winds down the night with a frank, drunken honesty. After the dark magic of the slinking, well-told "Diamonds and Gold," things begin to slow down with the so-close-its-touching-you "Hang Down Your Head," and by the opening of "Time," for a second Waits almost sounds like Leonard Cohen, regretfully conscious of time passing. These heavy tunes of lament and regret display exactly why Tom Waits is the master of the "Closing Time" mentality.
The title track begins with an accordion that sounds like a phantom’s church organ; it’s an effective opener for this rocking, falling song – one which is laid out delightfully by the feel of Ribot’s delicious chords slipping right the way down his guitar. There’s a great momentum and energy about it, the hoarse syllabic-balance of "with the Rose of Tralee" only helping to underline the great array of imagery Waits employs. The instrumental "Midtown," sounds as if it is straight out of the old Batman TV show, with its exploding stars of "Pow!" and "Wop!", or footage of cars speeding through darkened alleyways and knocking over trashcans, the only things missing.
Waits’ storytelling gets its usual narrative excursion on the whispered, "9th & Hennepin." Invitingly eerie, it couldn’t be a more perfect stage for Waits, as writer, to narrate with a calculated, atmospheric edge as he revels in his own insight and understanding of how the people of the world work: "I’ve seen it all, I’ve seen it all /Through the yellow windows of the evening train…" Meanwhile, the Southern taste to the inspired, banjo-straddled blues number that is "Gun Street Girl" makes it the kind of tune that would later influence the likes of Grant Lee Phillips.
The stomping rhythm’n’blues of "Union Square" feels like it’s being performed behind chicken-wire in yet another all-night bar (one that serves fried-chicken), while "Blind Love," on the other hand, introduces a country element to the fold in a simple, wandering track that sees Keith Richards cameo on steel guitar. Even after these two brief trips through different genres, the identity and feel of the album has long-since been established, and settles back comfortably with the swing of the horns in "Walking Spanish."
"Downtown Train" has "album closer" written all over it from the very first few seconds (although the drums perhaps sound a little dated); it would later even be covered and turned into a top-ten hit by Rod Stewart. Yet the show goes on with another brief instrumental in the form of "Bride of Rain Dog," which makes you feel like you’re walking in on the end of a twenty-four hour old jam session at six in the morning. "Anywhere I Lay My Head," however, is truly the last, classic gasp of Tom Waits’ evening, and here we find that he has been saving that extra bit of something special for his final thoughts. This is his growling swan song, shooting to life unexpectedly at the end with a Sunday-jazz brass section – one that’s oblivious to the now comatose troubadour, who’s probably lying knocked-out over the piano.