Frank Rider's definitions

Swordfishtrombones

Album number seven from artist-in-the-shadows, Tom Waits. Released in 1983, it was a forty minute, thirteen track, carnival mad house of wicked instrumentals and monologues. The album's title track is a story of a demented soldier returning home, hell bent on giving a show. The second track, Shore Leave, is a squeaky love ballad from a sailor to the land and his girl.

An excerpt from Swordfishtrombones'
Gin Soaked Boy

I got a belly full of you and that Leavenworth stuff
Now I'm gonna get out and I'm gonna get tough
You been lying to me, how could you crawl so low
With some gin-soaked boy that you don't know

I come home last night full a filth of Old Crow
You said you going to your ma's but where the hell did you go?
You went and slipped out nights, you didn't think that I'd know
With some gin-soaked boy that you don't know

by Frank Rider August 23, 2009

The Black Rider

This album was the studio version of the music from Tom Waits, Robert Wilson, and William S. Burroughs play; The Black Rider: The Casting of the Magic Bullets. And, it was Waits' twelfth album. It's quite beautiful, and also quite varying. It has some songs that are exciting; like The Black Rider, some that are depressing; like The Last Rose Of Summer, and some that are absolutely weird; like Oily Night. It's guaranteed to give you nightmares and steal your soul, but sorry - no money back.

An excerpt from The Black Rider's-
November

With my hair slicked back
With carrion shellac
With the blood from a pheasant
And the bone from a hare
Tied to the branches
Of a roebuck stag
Left to wave in the timber
Like a buck shot flag

by Frank Rider August 23, 2009

Real Gone

The sixteenth album by "self proclaimed junk-man," Tom Waits, released in 2004. With fifteen full length tracks, and a hidden one, it's a beautiful seventy minutes. The music on the album seems to be a cross between waitsian and mechanical. Metropolitan Glide is one of the odd ones here, it's quite grainy and loud. Dead and Lovely is a sad story of a girl dying because she lied about who she was. Another great is How's It Gonna End, about murder, lies and gossip. Waits is darker than ever, and still just as beautiful.

An excerpt from Real Gone's-
Don't Go Into That Barn

Black cellophane sky at midnite
Big blue moon with three gold rings
I called Champion to the window
And I pointed up above the trees
That's where I heard my name in a scream
Coming from the woods, out there
I let my dog run off the chain
I locked my door real good with a chair

by Frank Rider August 23, 2009

OHSHIT moment

An OHSHIT moment is the instant between the pain and screaming, or the first time you smell Paris Hilton's cooch. (Maybe a mix of both.) Any sort of moment where you are bound to freak out has an OHSHIT, big or small. Here you may yell out a shitplitive, begin to cry, or crap yourself. Or all three.

(An example of an OHSHIT moment)

In Johnny's head-

'OHSHIT, definitely not having kids now.'

by Frank Rider August 22, 2009

Co Co

A nick name for Conan O'Brien, given to him by Tom Hanks on the Tonight Show.

Conan hates being called Co Co

by Frank Rider August 23, 2009

The Heart of Saturday Night

Tom Waits released his second album just a year after his first. Much had evolved from then, though much was the same. Waits' newer music had a more jazzy feel, rather than the country twang of his debut. The piano is often drowned out by other instruments, but it does come pounding back out. The title track, The Heart Of Saturday Night, and it's conclusion The Ghosts Of Saturday Night, are settled, but very bouncy tunes.

An excerpt from The Heart of Saturday Night's first track-
New Coat Of Paint

Let's put a new coat of paint, on this lonesome old town
Set 'em up, we'll be knockin' em down.
You wear a dress, baby, and I'll wear a tie.
We'll laugh at that old bloodshot moon, in that burgundy sky

by Frank Rider August 22, 2009

Blood Money

The second half of Tom Waits' 2002 simultaneous release with Alice, his fifteenth album, and it's even got magical abilities. Kind of. This album is a studio version of music from Waits' version of the play Woyzcec. It is a chilling set of songs, but it is an amazing peek into Waits' mind. Track five, God's Away On Business, is a happy seeming tune, disguising a horrific tale of the sinking ship we are all on.

An excerpt from Blood Money's-
Misery Is the River of the World

God builds a church
The devil builds a chapel
Like the thistles that are growing
'Round the trunk of a tree
All the good in the world
You can put inside a thimble
And still have room for you and me
If there's one thing you can say about Mankind
There's nothing kind about man
You can drive out nature with a pitch fork
But it always comes roaring back again

by Frank Rider August 23, 2009