Line #18 Music/NighthawksAtTheDiner


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/e2ee73b00c60cfd246a67fff65320260.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350: ''An inebriated good evening to you all!'']]
3
4
5	''Nighthawks at the Diner'' is the third studio album by Music/TomWaits, released through Asylum Records in 1975. Combining traditional studio practices with those of a LiveAlbum, it was recorded at the Record Plant in Los Angeles in front of a small audience who got an invitation to the event. Contrary to most live albums Waits didn't play songs from the previous two studio albums he had released at that point [[note]] ''Music/ClosingTime'' (1973) and ''Music/TheHeartOfSaturdayNight'' (1974) [[/note]] but performed all new material. Another unusual trait was the fact that this was a DistinctDoubleAlbum.
6
7	''Nighthawks at the Diner'' has been praised for the wonderful jazz nightclub atmosphere and Waits' amusing delivery and jokes he tells during his performance.
8
9	!!Tracklist
10	!!!LP One
11	[[AC:Side One]]
12	# "(Intro)" (2:58)
13	# "Emotional Weather Report" (3:47)
14	# "(Intro)" (2:16)
15	# "On a Foggy Night" (3:48)
16	# "(Intro)" (1:53)
17	# "Eggs and Sausage (In A Cadillac with Susan Michelson)" (4:19)
18
19	[[AC:Side Two]]
20	[numlist:7]
21	# "Intro" (3:02)
22	# "Better Off Without a Wife" (3:59)
23	# "Nighthawk Postcards (From Easy Street)" (11:30)
24	[/numlist]
25
26	!!!LP Two
27	[[AC:Side Three]]
28	[numlist:10]
29	# "Intro" (0:55)
30	# "Warm Beer and Cold Women" (5:21)
31	# "Intro" (0:47)
32	# "Putnam County" (7:35)
33	# "Spare Parts I (A Nocturnal Emission)" (6:25)
34	[/numlist]
35
36	[[AC:Side Four]]
37	[numlist:15]
38	# "Nobody" (2:51)
39	# "Intro" (0:40)
40	# "Big Joe and Phantom 309" (6:29)
41	# "Spare Parts II and Closing" (5:13)
42	[/numlist]
43
44	[-CD releases are across one disc.-]
45
46	!! Personnel
47	* Music/TomWaits: vocals, piano, guitar
48	* Pete Christlieb: tenor sax
49	* Bill Goodwin: drums
50	* Jim Hughart: upright bass
51	* Mike Melvoin: piano, guitar, electric piano
52
53	!! Emotional Troper Report:
54	* AlbumTitleDrop: "Eggs And Sausage (In A Cadillac with Susan Michelson)"
55	--> ''Nighthawks at the diner of Emma's Forty-Niner''
56	* TheAlcoholic: "Nighthawks Postcards (From Easy Street)"
57	--> ''You've been drinking cleaning products all night''
58	* BewareOfHitchhikingGhosts: "Big Joe And Phantom 309" has Waits encounter a truck driver named Big Joe, one night, who turns out to be a ghost who appears every night [[AtTheCrossroads at the crossroads]]. Apparently he died 10 years ago in a bus accident, where he gave his life to prevent a group of children dying in the process.
59	* BookEnds: Two songs have the title "Spare Parts".
60	* BreakupSong:
61	** "Emotional Weather Report"
62	--> ''And a weak pressure ridge extending from my eyes down to my cheeks cause since you left me baby''
63	--> ''And put the vice grips on my mental health''
64	--> ''Well the extended outlook for an indefinite period of time until you come back to me baby is high tonight''
65	--> ''Low tomorrow, and precipitation is expected''
66	** "Spare Parts I"
67	--> ''Yeah, well, I don't need you baby''
68	--> ''It's a well known fact''
69	--> ''I'm 4 sheets to the wind''
70	--> ''I'm glad you're gone''
71	--> ''I'm glad you're gone''
72	--> ''I'm finally alone''
73	--> ''Glad you're gone, but I''
74	--> ''Wish you'd come home''
75	* CoverVersion: "Phantom 309" by Tommy Faile, released a single in 1967 by Red Sovine. Waits version has slighty different lyrics, though.
76	* CradleOfLoneliness: "Better Off Without A Wife"
77	--> ''Well, they say I'm kinda selfish about my privacy''
78	--> ''Now as long as I can be with me''
79	--> ''We get along so well I can't even believe it''
80	* DesignStudentsOrgasm: The album cover is shot by Cal Schenkel and inspired by Creator/EdwardHopper's painting "Nighthawks".
81	* DistinctDoubleAlbum: The album was released as a double LP at the time.
82	* ADogAteMyHomework: "Putnam County"
83	--> ''Where the hell are my goddamn sandals?''
84	--> ''What do you mean the dog chewed up my left foot''
85	* EpicRocking: If the intros are considered as part of the tracks they lead into, nearly every song. Apart from "Nobody" and "Spare Parts II", all songs, when combined with their intros, are at least six minutes long. The longest is "Nighthawk Postcards", though, at eleven and a half minutes.
86	* FaceOnTheCover: Tom Waits is featured on the album cover, sitting in a diner restaurant.
87	* HurricaneOfPuns: "Eggs And Sausage"
88	--> ''Coffee just wasn't strong enough to defend itself.''
89	* {{Improv}}: The intro to "On A Foggy Night"
90	--> ''Well, I think it's about time I took you on an improvisitional adventure into the bowels of the metropolitan region''
91	* InsultBackfire: "Better Off Without A Wife": during the intro Waits says he often calls himself up and asks himself up. Some people in the audience laugh with this, but then he retreats:
92	--> ''Oh yeah, you call yourself up too, huh?''
93	* LiveAlbum: Waits' first.
94	* MisogynySong: "Better Off Without A Wife".
95	--> ''Hey, I've got this girl I know, man, and I just...''
96	--> ''She been married several times and I...''
97	--> ''I don't wanna end up like her''
98	--> ''I mean, she been married so many times''
99	--> ''She got rice marks all over her face and''
100	--> ''Yeah, you know the kind''
101	* MundaneMadeAwesome: "Eggs And Sausage", where Waits orders eggs and sausage in a diner restaurant.
102	* NighthawksShot: The album is a shout-out to Edward Hopper's painting "Nighthawks".
103	* OminousFog: "On A Foggy Night"
104	--> ''I'm stranded, all upon a foggy night''
105	* OneWordTitle: "Nobody".
106	* ThePowerOfLove: "Nobody"
107	--> ''Nobody, nobody, will ever love you the way I could love you''
108	--> ''Cause nobody's that strong''
109	* ProductPlacement: "Putnam County"
110	--> ''Driving in Subarus, Pintos, Malibus, Oldsmobiles''
111	--> ''(...)And you climb into the helm of a 1958 monkey shit brown Buick Super and you're on your way home''
112	--> ''(...) Light up an Old Gold, save the coupon''
113	--> ''And they'd suck on Coca Colas and be spittin' Days work''
114	--> ''(...) and the Stratocasters slung over the Burgermeister beer guts''
115	--> ''Wearing Prince Matchabelli, Estée Lauder''
116	--> ''And the Gmc' s and the Straight 8 Fords were coughing and wheezing and they perculated as they tossed the gravel''
117	** "Spare Parts I"
118	--> ''And the sky turned the color of Pepto-Bismol''
119	--> ''(...) Jacked up my pegs, wiped my Stacy Adams''
120	--> ''Was that a Malibu?''
121	** "Big Joe and Phantom 309"
122	--> ''I smoked up all his Viceroys as we rolled along''
123	* SayingSoundEffectsOutLoud: During "Spare Parts I" Waits imitates a car passing by after the line ''Was that a Malibu?''
124	* {{Scatting}}: Waits scats near the end of "Spare Parts I".
125	* {{Self Deprecation}}: "Better Off Without A Wife"
126	--> ''But I've always kinda been partial to calling myself up on the phone and asking myself out, you know? (...) Yeah, well one thing about it: you're always around.''
127	* ShoutOut:
128	** The "intro" to "Better Off Without A Wife" quotes from the Bridal Chorus from Music/RichardWagner's ''Theatre/TheRingOfTheNibelung''.
129	--> ''For everybody who ever whistled this song... or maybe you whistled it, but you lost the sheet music''
130	** "Nighthawks Postcards" namedrops sideshow entertainer PT Barnum and references the Cheshire Cat from ''Literature/AliceInWonderland''.
131	--> ''Or they give you the old Creator/PTBarnum bit: "There's a sucker born every minute."''
132	--> ''(...) Looking for some kind of Cheshire billboard grin''
133	** "Nighthawks Postcards" also namedrops "Wine, Wine, Wine" (1963) by the Nightcaps. Waits confuses this band with Chuck E. Weiss' 1975 band "The Night Caps". Another song referenced is "High Blood Pressure" by George Perkins and several lines from Music/FrankSinatra's "That's Life". To top it all off legendary jazz drummer Gene Krupa is also mentioned.
134	--> ''I was lookin' for maybe 'Wine, Wine, Wine' by the Nightcaps''
135	--> ''Starring Chuck E. Weiss or maybe...''
136	--> ''Maybe a little something called 'High Blood Pressure' ''
137	--> ''By George 'cryin' in the streets' Perkins, no dice''
138	--> ''"Cause that's life," that's what all the people say''
139	--> ''Your riding high in April, seriously shot down in May''
140	--> ''But I know I'm gonna change that tune''
141	--> ''When I'm standing underneath a buttery moon That's all melted off to one side''
142	--> ''(...) And it sounded like the ghost of Gene Krupa''.
143	** The intro to "Warm Beer And Cold Women" makes reference to a bar called ''Literature/TheThreeLittlePigs''. The song itself namedrops Tammy Wynette and Johnnie Barnett.
144	--> ''And the band's playin' something by Tammy Wynette''
145	--> ''(...) And the band's playin' something by Johnnie Barnett''
146	** "Putnam Country" namedrops the Music/HankWilliams Song Book and singer Charlie Rich.
147	--> ''I elbowed up at the counter with mixed feelings over mixed drinks and Bubba and the Roadmasters moaned in pool hall concentration as they knit their brows to cover the entire Hank Williams Song Book''
148	--> ''As the radio spittin' out Charlie Rich, man, and he sure can sing that son of a bitch''
149	** "Spare Parts I" namedrops Creator/ElizabethTaylor, Creator/MontgomeryClift, Stan Getz and Series/TheSmothersBrothersComedyHour.
150	--> ''Liz Taylor and Montgomery Clift, coming on to the broads with the same ol' riff. Hey, baby, why don't you come up to my place, we'll listen to some smooth music on the stereo, no thank you, she said. Got any Stan Getz records? No, man, I got Smothers Brothers''
151	* SpokenWordInMusic: Many songs have Waits talking, while the band plays in the background.
152	* AStormIsComing: "Emotional Weather Report".
153	--> ''And a line of thunderstorms was developing in the early morning''
154	* TalksLikeASimile: "Spare Parts"
155	--> ''Yeah baby, you put me on hold and I'm out in the wind''
156	--> ''And it's getting mighty cold''
157	--> ''It's colder than a [[MotorMouth gut-shot bitch wolf dog with nine sucking pups]] [[LyricalShoehorn pulling a number-four trap up a hill in the dead of winter in the middle of a snowstorm]] with a mouth full of porcupine quills...''

Context Music / NighthawksAtTheDiner