Song Noir: Tom Waits and the Spirit of Los Angeles

Song Noir offers a compelling examination of Tom Waits' formative first decade. This pivotal period saw him living, writing, and recording nine albums in Los Angeles, charting his evolution from the gentle, folk-tinged debut, Closing Time (1973), to the abrasive, surreal sound of Swordfishtrombones (1983).

Starting his songwriting career in the 70s, Waits expertly absorbed LA's rich tapestry of cultural influences. He fused the spoken idioms of writers like Kerouac and Bukowski with jazz-blues rhythms, delving into the city's literary and film noir traditions to craft truly hallucinatory dreamscapes. Waits masterfully mined the city's seam of low-life locations and characters, allowing the place to fuel his dark imagination. Blending the everyday with the mythic, he transformed quotidian, autobiographical details into something far more disturbing and emblematic – a vivid vision of LA as the warped, narcotic heart of his nocturnal explorations.