"Better Off Without a Wife"
"Better Off Without a Wife"
'Nighthawks at the Diner', 1975
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Hoo boy, here we go. The first track we hit from Nighthawks at the Diner.
I suspect this is the album where I part ways with many big Waits fans (i.e. you all). I mean, I don’t care much about Foreign Affairs or the Night on Earth soundtrack either, but I gather many people agree with me. But I think Nighthawks is a fan favorite. I just looked up where it fell on Stereogum’s great Tom Waits albums ranking a few years ago. Number five! Ahead of Franks Wild Years, Mule Variations, and Alice! Insanity.
My problem with Nighthawks is that, to me, it’s all vibe. From the (phenomenal) album cover on down, Tom creates a mood, a feeling, an energy, a scene. What he doesn’t do, for the most part, is write particularly memorable songs. Tom Waits the “character” comes across very strongly on Nighthawks. Tom Waits the “songwriter,” not so much.
“Better Off Without a Wife” is one of the better songs, but it still showcases some of the album’s flaws. The opening half is pleasant enough, a folk-jazz ditty with some catchy wordplay:
All my friends are married
Every Tom and Dick and Harry
You must be strong if you're to go it alone
Here's to the bachelors and the Bowery bums
Those who feel that they're the ones
That are better off without a wife
Even there, though — the best part of the song, mind you — the music feels as warmed-over as his eggs and sausage. It sounds like something that would have been better suited to one of those Early Years compilations than a showcase of Tom’s new album.
Then it goes into that semi-spoken bridge (“Yeah, you see I'm kinda selfish about my privacy…”). That’s the beat-poet energy that brings down much of Nighthawks for me. And, after one more chorus, it goes back there for the outro (“Hey, I got this girl I know, man, and I just…). The conceit of presenting it as a “live” album (albeit taped in a studio with an audience of friends) seems like something you do when the songs can’t stand on their own.
“Better Off without a Wife” is one of the album’s best songs. And it still isn’t much.
PS. Pete Shelley of the Buzzcocks almost saves “Better Off” with his killer punk cover, which dumps the spoken word bits and adds extra guitar solos:
Nighthawks is the first Tom Waits album I heard so I've got a big soft spot for it. Mid 90s, I was 20. I knew nothing about the guy but loved the character and the humour behind the conceit, and the lonely melancholy of the songs. I had a poster of the Edward Hopper painting on my wall and this was like a soundtrack made for it. I might never have become a Tom Waits fan had it not been for Nighthawks at the Diner.