Title: The Many Lives Of Tom Waits
Author: Patrick Humphries
Year: 2007
Tom Waits is a fascinating musician (and actor), who intentionally shrouds himself in as much mystery as possible. Like many artists of his generation, he has a flair for inventing personal histories to derail overzealous interviewers. Plus, when you sit and look at his back catalogue, you’ll notice that he’s released very few albums for someone who’s been at this since the early 70s. All in all, he’s the perfect person to write a biography about. There are hoards of Waits fans yearning to know all about his early life, his thoughts, his personal growth over the years and so on. Even if Waits won’t tell you, a good biographer should be able to dig into his personal history a bit and uncover something new to tantalize Waits’ legions of fans. That book would fly off the shelves.
The Many Lives Of Tom Waits is not that book, no matter how much it wants to be. Its biggest problem is lack of original material. By his own admission, author Patrick Humphries met Waits only once, back in the early 80s. This was pre-Swordfishtrombones, pre-Rain Dogs, pre-everything that has now lifted Waits up to near mythic status. Humphries comes back again and again to that brief afternoon interview when he tries to bring something new to the table. But when that fails him, all he has to fall back on is a pile of interviews and quotes from other journalists. This leaves the reader begging for something insightful, something unexpected while reading the book. Even a few interviews with close friends or old musical collaborators would have been golden compared to those old interviews.
What this book is begging for, with big, drooping eyes, is a good editor. Being the nitpicky reader I am, I couldn’t help but notice a few inconsequential, but distracting errors throughout the book (for example, Humphries says a video was made for the title track of 1992’s Bone Machine. That album has no title track and the video was for “Goin’ Out West”). While these are understandable typos and oversights, when I, amateur twenty-year-old music historian Simon Irving, can pick these things out, it undermines the credibility of the book. Humphries also writes in a convoluted, counterintuitive style where the Waits timeline is bent to fit the needs of the author. 1987’s Franks Wild Years is discussed before 1985’s Rain Dogs, for example, which will confuse anyone with a passing knowledge of Waits’ career. These errors are better than glaring mistakes, but they’re irritating nonetheless.
Finally, on a matter of personal taste, Humphries’ assessment of Waits’ recorded works bothers me greatly. Waits’ music is generally divided into two categories: his pre-1983 balladeer work and his more experimental post-1983 albums. Humphries makes it clear he prefers the earlier stuff, which in and of itself is fine. The problem I have is that this is counter to the prevailing critical opinions on Waits’ work and Humphries never acknowledges this. He casually declares 1976’s Small Change as “Waits’ masterpiece,” as if it was common knowledge. Just reading that sentence, I could hear the ranks of Waits fans screaming in protest. For someone who writes like the biggest Tom Waits fan in the world, Patrick Humphries seems surprisingly cut off from what the rest of Waits’ fans actually think.
The Many Lives Of Tom Waits is not that book, no matter how much it wants to be. Its biggest problem is lack of original material. By his own admission, author Patrick Humphries met Waits only once, back in the early 80s. This was pre-Swordfishtrombones, pre-Rain Dogs, pre-everything that has now lifted Waits up to near mythic status. Humphries comes back again and again to that brief afternoon interview when he tries to bring something new to the table. But when that fails him, all he has to fall back on is a pile of interviews and quotes from other journalists. This leaves the reader begging for something insightful, something unexpected while reading the book. Even a few interviews with close friends or old musical collaborators would have been golden compared to those old interviews.
What this book is begging for, with big, drooping eyes, is a good editor. Being the nitpicky reader I am, I couldn’t help but notice a few inconsequential, but distracting errors throughout the book (for example, Humphries says a video was made for the title track of 1992’s Bone Machine. That album has no title track and the video was for “Goin’ Out West”). While these are understandable typos and oversights, when I, amateur twenty-year-old music historian Simon Irving, can pick these things out, it undermines the credibility of the book. Humphries also writes in a convoluted, counterintuitive style where the Waits timeline is bent to fit the needs of the author. 1987’s Franks Wild Years is discussed before 1985’s Rain Dogs, for example, which will confuse anyone with a passing knowledge of Waits’ career. These errors are better than glaring mistakes, but they’re irritating nonetheless.
Finally, on a matter of personal taste, Humphries’ assessment of Waits’ recorded works bothers me greatly. Waits’ music is generally divided into two categories: his pre-1983 balladeer work and his more experimental post-1983 albums. Humphries makes it clear he prefers the earlier stuff, which in and of itself is fine. The problem I have is that this is counter to the prevailing critical opinions on Waits’ work and Humphries never acknowledges this. He casually declares 1976’s Small Change as “Waits’ masterpiece,” as if it was common knowledge. Just reading that sentence, I could hear the ranks of Waits fans screaming in protest. For someone who writes like the biggest Tom Waits fan in the world, Patrick Humphries seems surprisingly cut off from what the rest of Waits’ fans actually think.
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