Tom Waits began his career at the end, portraying a washed-up saloon singer with a barrel full of a broken hearts and tip jar stuffed with dreams — at the ripe old age of 24. A little bit Sinatra and a little bit Kristofferson, couched in an early '70s orchestral soft-rock milieu, Waits' debut demonstrates a precocious mastery of songwriting conventions that would form the basis for his later innovations.

"I Hope That I Don't Fall in Love with You" is a barroom first-sight romance ("I turn around to look at you, you light a cigarette/I wish I had the guts to bum one, but we've never met") with a twist at the end worthy of a seasoned Nashville pro: the dreaded deed in the title only happens once she's walked out the door. "Old Shoes (and Picture Postcards)" is a king-of-the-road farewell song with a jaunty shuffle rhythm and singalong chorus; "Midnight Lullaby" is windowsill wooing told in slurred, lascivious nursery rhymes as a trumpet player serenades in the back alleys below. In "Ol' '55," the weatherbeaten protagonist revs away in his trusty clunker; in "Martha," he desperately dials an old flame four decades after their glory years. "We were… read more »