Pitchfork‘s review of Real Gone, Tom Waits’ 18th studio release (2004), goes a long way towards the difficult task of describing this singular artist, whose sound is often (and insufficiently) described as a mix of blues, rock, jazz, and experimental: “Tom Waits sings with his eyes closed, face squished tight, arms jerking, elbows popping, his entire body curled small and fetal around the microphone stand. Waits’ mouth is barely open, but his ears are perked high, perfectly straight, craning skyward, stretching out: Tom Waits is channeling frequencies that the rest of us cannot hear … Real Gone, like most of Tom Waits’ records, is teeming with all kinds of mysterious noises … it lurches along like a junk-heap jalopy, unsteady and unsafe, bits flying off in every direction, stopping, starting, and bouncing in pain.”
Waits describes himself as a person who is likely at home with his unsettled sound: “If people are a little nervous about approaching you at the market, it’s good. I’m not Chuckles The Clown. Or Bozo. I don’t cut the ribbon at the opening of markets. I don’t stand next to the mayor. Hit your baseball into my yard, and you’ll never see it again.”
Built on the utterly familiar elements of a minor blues, from the harmonic progression to the bass line to the intermittent guitar riffs, “Shake It” still manages to channel a rattling bucket of bolts that may or may not have some razor blades mixed in. Starting in F minor, 2:03 brings a transition to F# minor. The modulation doesn’t arrive at the end of the blues form, but unnervingly announces itself right in the middle of a verse. 2:55 jerks us back into F minor — this time with a tempo shift and a change in feel. The bull’s arrived at the china shop after recently enjoying a wallow in the mud, and the marked-down red table linens are on display.
Many thanks to our regular contributor Jonathan “JHarms” Harms, who submitted and summed up the track: “All hail the dirty, unannounced modulation.”
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