“Frank's Wild Years” by Tom Waits

"Frank's Wild Years" sits on Swordfishtrombones, the 1983 Island album where Tom Waits took the producer's chair on his own for the first time and pushed away from the piano-based songwriting of his earlier records toward odd instrumentation and a looser, more abstract, experimental kind of rock. He wrote it, sings it, arranged it and produced it.

The credits name just two other players, Ronnie Barron on Hammond organ and Larry Taylor on bass, with Tim Boyle recording and Biff Dawes mixing. The title would come around again, too, on Franks Wild Years, the album that joins Rain Dogs in the loose trilogy Swordfishtrombones is often said to begin.

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