'Well they call me William the Pleaser / I've sold opium, fireworks and lead / Now I'm telling my troubles to strangers / And when the shadows get long I'll be dead'
So Tom Waits opens Lucinda, a booming murder ballad from the album Orphans. The song is the perfect melding of Waits' experimental leanings with his Beat poet via Alan Lomax tinged lyrics.
Nearly the whole backing to the song is the sound of Waits booming, slurring and hollering in a beatbox collage of dust blowing and gallows snapping. Aside from a spare harmonica or the every so often bass note, that's all you get. The song is built from the ground up upon the power of his voice, and shows what a formidable instrument it is in its own right.
By limiting the arrangement to his vocals but chopping them up in a unique style, Waits has created a song which wouldn't seem out of place one hundred years ago or coming out tomorrow. It's a rare feat and powerfully kinetic piece of music.
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