Foreign Affairs (Tom Waits album)
| Untitled | |
|---|---|
| Review scores | |
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| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |   link |
| Mojo | |
| Robert Christgau | (B) link |
| The Rolling Stone Album Guide |  [1] |
Foreign Affairs is the fourth studio album by Tom Waits, released in 1977 on Elektra Entertainment. It was produced by Bones Howe, and featured Bette Midler singing a duet with Waits on "I Never Talk to Strangers".
Production
Bones Howe, the album's producer, remembers the album's original concept and production approach thus:
[Waits] talked to me about doing this other material [...] He said, "I'm going to do the demos first, and then I'm gonna let you listen to them. Then we should talk about what it should be." I listened to the material and said, "It's like a black-and-white movie." That's where the cover came from. The whole idea that it was going to be a black-and-white movie. It's the way it seemed to me when we were putting it together. Whether or not it came out that way, I don't have any idea, because there's such metamorphosis when you're working on [records]. They change and change.[2]
Artwork
Pictured on the cover with Waits is a Native American woman named Marsheila Cockrell, who worked at the box office of The Troubadour in Los Angeles. "She was a girl who was... not a girlfriend but she thought she was a girlfriend."[3]
For the album cover Waits wanted to convey the film-noir mood that coloured so many of the songs. Veteran Hollywood portraitist George Hurrell was hired to shoot Waits, both alone and in a clutch with a shadowy female whose ring-encrusted right hand clamped a passport to his chest. The back-cover shot of Tom was particularly good, casting him as a slicked-back hoodlum—half matinee idol, half hair-trigger psychopath. The inner sleeve depicted the soused singer clawing at the keys of his Tropicana upright.[3]
Track listing
All tracks written by Tom Waits, except where noted.
Side one
| No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Cinny's Waltz" (Instrumental) | 2:17 | |
| 2. | "Muriel" | 3:33 | |
| 3. | "I Never Talk to Strangers" | 3:38 | |
| 4. | "Medley: Jack & Neal/California, Here I Come" | "California, Here I Come" by Joseph Meyer, Al Jolson and Buddy De Sylva | 5:01 |
| 5. | "A Sight for Sore Eyes" | 4:40 |
Side two
| No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Potter's Field" | Words: Waits - Music: Bob Alcivar | 8:40 |
| 2. | "Burma-Shave" | 6:34 | |
| 3. | "Barber Shop" | 3:54 | |
| 4. | "Foreign Affair" | 3:46 |
Personnel
- Gene Cipriano – clarinet solos on "Potter's Field"
- Jim Hughart – bass
- Shelly Manne – drums
- Bette Midler – vocals on "I Never Talk to Strangers"
- Jack Sheldon – trumpet solos
- Frank Vicari – tenor saxophone solos
- Tom Waits – piano, vocals
Notes
- ^ "Tom Waits: Album Guide". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on September 19, 2011.
{{cite web}}: Unknown parameter|deadurl=ignored (|url-status=suggested) (help) - ^ "Tom Waits Time line: 1976—1980". Retrieved 2007-01-18.
- ^ a b Hoskyns, Barney. Low Side of the Road: a life of Tom Waits pp. 189-91