“Singapore” by Tom Waits

"Singapore" is Tom Waits's song in every column of the credits: he wrote the words and the music, arranged it, sang lead and produced it himself. It's part of Rain Dogs, his ninth studio album, which Island released in September 1985, a loosely linked set of songs about New York's castaways and have-nots that's usually counted as the middle of a trilogy, with Swordfishtrombones and Franks Wild Years on either side.

Around him, Marc Ribot and Chris Spedding play guitar, Larry Taylor is on double bass, Stephen Taylor Arvizu Hodges drums and Michael Blair adds percussion, with Robert Musso engineering and mixing. Arion Berger heard the album folding Kurt Weill, grimy old blues and New Orleans funeral brass into one peculiar American voice, and Rolling Stone ranked Rain Dogs 21st on its 1989 list of the best albums of the 1980s.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz.