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Small Change |  | Artist: Tom Waits
Label: Warner
Category: Music
List Price: £7.99
Buy New: £2.49
as of 25/11/2009 19:46 GMT details
You Save: £5.50 (69%)
New (45) Used (12) Collectible (1) from £2.14
Seller: bva1518
Rating:  10 reviews
Sales Rank: 2511
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.6 x 4.9 x 0.4
MPN: 1078
UPC: 075596061223
EAN: 0075596061223
ASIN: B000002GY9
Release Date: October 1, 1999
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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| Tracks:
| • | Tom Traubert's Blues | | • | Step Right Up | | • | Jitterbug Boy | | • | I Wish I Was In New Orleans | | • | Piano Has Been Drinking (Not Me) | | • | Invitation To The Blues | | • | Pasties And A G String | | • | Bad Liver And A Broken Heart | | • | One That Got Away | | • | Small Change | | • | I Can't Wait To Get Off Work |
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 10
 I wouldnt give 5 stars to many albums! February 6, 2003
faz (UK)
13 out of 16 found this review helpful
I have listened to tom waits since I was a kid, (which I have my dad to thank for), and only really recently bought some of his stuff my self. However I believe that it is not too naïve of me to say that this really is one of the finest albums there is. From the opening tracks of #8220;Tom Traubert#8217;s Blues#8221; and #8220;Step Right Up#8221; (my dads favourite), the album is decorated with melody and blues. However my favourites are the slightly insane: #8220;The piano has been drinking (not me)#8221; and #8220;Pasties and a G-String#8221; where I think his genius is most evident. Now don#8217;t get me wrong I am by no means of the imagination any #8220;Tom Waits#8221; expert (hey I am only 20), though I do know great music when I hear it, and there are very, very few albums that I would give 5 stars in any kind or rating. However this has always been one of my favourites and is easily worthy of a 5 star rating. There isn#8217;t really a great deal else that can be said without listening to the album for your self, but worth mentioning is that Waits is one of the few artist out there who has been (and still is) recognised for his talent rather than his #8220;commercial appeal#8221;, and for which reason, in my mind, has never sold out.
The Best Songwriter's Album In The World...Ever! July 31, 2001
16 out of 21 found this review helpful
Small Change, in my opinion, is the finest addition to the Tom Waits cannon, and the best example I can think of of an album that consistently showcases brilliant songwriting. The quality never wavers, and the tone is more personal than on many other Waits albums. The result is a bar-stool confessional, life as seen through the whisky glass; hard luck stories told for anybody who cares to listen...all to a soundtrack that is both bluesy, jazzy, and beatnik-funky. Wait's pre-eminence as a writer has long earned him kudos from more prominent artists, and the classic opener on this album (Tom Traubert's Blues) gave Rod Stewart (a confirmed Waits fan) an unlikely chart hit a few years back. This is a sorry, booze-soaked tale of unrequited love, underpinned by a lush, stringed arrangement that lends it a festive air, which wouldn't seem out of place on Heart Attack and Vine. Next up is the beat-poet satire on the mania of commerce that is Step Right Up...here Waits adopts the voice of a closing down, everything must go salesperson of irrelevant specificity - the song's all-embracing intentions are brilliantly inscribed with a wonderfully timed bit of scat singing as Waits recites that's right you too can be the proud owner of this quality hoosay boosing boosong..!! Classic. Waits wouldn't look out of place in the company of the contemporary literati. Jitterbug Boy is another boozy confessional, with Waits's down-on-his-luck narrator sounding as though he'd had a few too many before collaring a bar neighbour to spew out some unlikely stories to (once upon a time I was in showbiz too..)...a similar tone but possibly even more pathetic (and beautiful sounding) lament arrives later with Bad liver and a broken heart. In this, another alcoholic, sorry tale of unrequited love, Waits muses on the girl who tore him apart, and in just a couple of pointed metaphors conveys a girl to die for: she was sharp as a razor, and soft as a prayer. All the songs on this album are worth a mention. The piano has been drinking (not me!) is an hilarious description of a shabby late night boozer in a series of compressed metaphors (the spotlight looks like a prizon break) in which the singer subtly suggests that maybe he is as lurid as everything else about the place; and yet comes out of it engagingly qualified in a turn of phrase as comic as it is acerbic (the owner is a mental midget with the IQ of a fencepost.) This is a truly great album, at turns moving, funny, voyeuristic (witness the leering narrator of the album's second beat poem, Pasties and a G-String, in which he confesses I'm getting harder than Chinese Algebra whilst ogling over strippers in a - you've guessed it - late night joint.) Overall, Small Change is an ingeniously written, booze-soaked love-poem to the late night wino life of the big American cities - by the unlikeliest crooner of them all.
Waits at his best November 27, 1999
5 out of 7 found this review helpful
I have been a Tom Waits fan for many years, and for me Small Change marks the peak of his talent. Despite being a gifted pianist and singer, Tom always says that words are his main instrument, and you have only to listen to Tom Trauberts Blues or I Wish I was in New Orleans to realise this is the case.pThis album is a little known classic, and will wring every emotion from your heart as you listen to it.
I bought this when it came out and still it sound fresh and emotional May 11, 2006
Keith Joseph (West Berkshire, England)
4 out of 6 found this review helpful
I think I was attracted to the strange smokey Burlesque front cover picture back in the seventies when perusing the record shops while a student in Liverpool - I had no idea of who Tom Waites was. I love all the songs on the LP (and the sound quality of the vinyl was good - and it's very good as a CD). Without doubt my favourites tracks are 'Tom Trauberts blues' (even better than Rod Stewarts excellent cover), a superb very dark rewriting of Waltzing Matilda perfectly capturing Waites boozy nightclub style, and the epic poetical 'Small change' who got 'rained on by his own 38'. Other favourites include 'My piano has been drinking','Step right up' and well all the rest on the LP. I feel some of Tom's songs miss the mark (e.g. Franks wild years), but many don't (he's made 18 albums). I have recently bought many other Tom Waites CDs containing great tracks like Martha and The heart of Saturday night, plus some of his 'newer' works, but this is still my favourite (and we'll go waltzing Matilda...).
An enthralling adventure February 3, 2004
5 out of 8 found this review helpful
This is without a doubt one of the finest collections of music I have ever had the pleasure of owning and i feel it is the jewel in Waits' crown. A masterpiece of arrangements and lyrics which are undeniably Tom and which you will not find anywhere else. This album is an insightful and emotional journey through late night America where Waits is most at home. Slow, often painful melodies guide the listener through the sinews of the musicians mind where euphony and cacophony sit side by side surrounded my metaphors both obvious and obscure. If you are into good music, make that great music of any kind then you could not but appreciate this album. You will not be disappointed.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 10
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