With news of Tom Waits’ European tour (and the possibility of him visiting Ireland) filtering through, it’s as good a time as any to re-visit this classic from 1983’s Swordfishtrombones, the album that marked Waits’ move away from gruff, drunken piano ballads and into something a lot more interesting.

‘16 Shells from a Thirty-Ought-Six’ sounds like the kind of thing that would be sung by a demented chain gang. The percussion consists of pipes being clanked, bins getting hit, and other strange, Beefheart-influenced stuff.

Waits’ voice itself is even gruffer than usual here - he barks the words out, and sounds like an enraged drunk. The theme of this song either seems to be about his lazy, unreliable “old pack mule”, or about some crow that he shot with his sixteen shells. As with a lot of Waits’ stuff, there’s room for interpretation. Some great lines here, but a personal favourite is “I blew me a hole about the size of a kickdrum”. If you listen, you’ll understand. I love Waits’ humour, it’s black and country-fied.

Here’s a live version of ‘16 Shells…’ that he performed live for his Big Time movie, but you should also check out the studio version on Swordfishtrombones. In fact, listen to the whole album, and pay particular attention to the title track, ‘Underground’, ‘Shore Leave’ and my own personal favourite, ‘Down Down Down’. Classic beatnik rock ‘n’ roll by the master.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, July 17th, 2008 at 5:00 am and is filed under Other, Punk / Post-Punk, Retro Classics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.