And I am a Rain Dog too...

Although I go through phases of loving each of Tom Waits's albums a little more fiercely than the rest, if pinned down to a single 'desert island discs' choice, I usually have to go for 'Rain Dogs' as my absolute favourite. (The guitar on 'Downtown Train' is the one thing I'd really love to be able to replicate in my own playing [one day, assuming I ever get down to practising properly... it's hard to take up an instrument in your middle years!] - not at all complex, but exquisite phrasing and control of tone.)

I hadn't understood the reference in the title track (although I've always felt a particular identification with the early line: "Taxi?? We'd rather walk.") until I read an interview with Tom a few years back in which he talked about it. The idea was that in a modern city the dogs all rely on items of street furniture to leave their territorial scent markings on, and these are easily washed clean by a heavy rainfall. Hence, after a storm, you will see a lot of bemused and bedraggled urban mutts forlornly sniffing at suddenly odourless mailboxes, fire-hydrants, and lamp-posts, at a loss as to how to find their way home.

And that's a rather too apposite metaphor for guys like me - never being sure where 'home' is, semi-permanently baffled by our surroundings, thrown into confusion by every change in the weather.

I don't think anyone has ever written better of the road, the bar, and the underachiever than Tom.