Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,819 Tom Waits - Heartattack & Vine

 

I've been thinking about the past a lot this week with one thing and another. I won't bother you wuth a blow by blow account. I'm sure you've got stuff to do today. In the words of the late, great and sorely lamented Grant McLennan. 'If you spend your time looking behind you. You don't see what's up front. '

Well, quite. But still what's the point of doing things if you're not going to look back and think about them once in a while. The finest musical week of my entire life, and I suspect we can put a wrap on that one, was in Autumn 1985 during my first term at university.

I came to see Tom Waits and R.E.M. playing at great London venues at a point when it was possible to see superlative music artistes like these without too much actual expense or some kind of media scrum. 

Both Tom and R.E.M. were pretty much in their pomp and both were among the finest artists that the  twentieth century produced for reasons I won't bother to justify at any length here. 

There were definite comparisons between the two. Both were touring in upport of fine albums that ruminated deeply on the past andwondered if they were altogether over. Rain Digs in Tom's case. Fables of the Reconstruction in R.E.M's. I'm happy just to exist within the pages of these two fantsatic records but both had plenty more to offer.

I knew all of R.E.M's recorded work better than I knew most of the people I knew at this pont. I was an ingenue where Tom was concerned. I knew Swordfishtrombones and I knew Rain Dogs. The rest has come since. You might as well start with Heartattack & Vine. The man is the finest storyteller. If you have any instincts to tell a story properly, study at his knee first.