“San Diego Serenade” by Tom Waits

"San Diego Serenade" comes from The Heart of Saturday Night, Tom Waits's second album, released by Asylum on October 15, 1974. Waits wrote it, sings it and plays the piano, with Jim Hughart on upright bass, Bill Goodwin on drums and Pete Christlieb blowing tenor sax, and Bob Alcivar handled the arrangement.

Bones Howe produced and engineered it, with Geoff Howe assisting, and this was the album where that partnership began: Howe went on to produce and engineer every Waits record until the singer left Asylum, about a decade later. The sleeve, modeled on Frank Sinatra's In the Wee Small Hours, sets the scene for the whole record, a weary Waits stepping out of a neon-lit cocktail lounge deep in the night while a blonde looks on.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz.