The Heart of Saturday Night

The Heart of Saturday Night
Studio album by Tom Waits
Released October 15, 1974 (1974-10-15)[1]
Genre Folk, blues, jazz[2]
Length 41:28
Label Asylum
Producer Bones Howe
Tom Waits chronology
Closing Time
(1973)Closing Time1973		 The Heart of Saturday Night
(1974)		 Nighthawks at the Diner
(1975)Nighthawks at the Diner1975
Singles from The Heart of Saturday Night
  1. "Blue Skies (non-album single)"
    Released: October 1974
  2. "San Diego Serenade"
    Released: 1975

The Heart of Saturday Night is the second studio album by singer and songwriter Tom Waits, released in 1974 on Asylum Records. The title song was written as a tribute to Jack Kerouac.[3]

Cover

The album cover is based on In the Wee Small Hours by Frank Sinatra.[4] It is an illustration featuring a tired Tom Waits being observed by a blonde prostitute as he exits a neon-lit cocktail lounge late at night.[5] Cal Schenkel was the art director and the cover art was created by Lyn Lascaro.[4]

Critical reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[2]
Christgau's Record GuideC+[6]
Pitchfork7.9/10[7]
Q[8]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide[9]
The Village VoiceB–[10]

In a contemporary review for The Village Voice, Janet Maslin regarded the songs as tawdry affectations of "a boozy vertigo" marred by Waits' vague lyrics and ill-advised puns on an album that is "too self-consciously limited" in mood. "It demands to be listened to after hours", Maslin wrote, "when that cloud of self-pitying gloom has descended and the vino is close at hand".[11] Fellow Village Voice critic Robert Christgau was also critical of Waits' compositions, writing that "there might be as many coverable songs here as there were on his first album if mournful melodies didn't merge into neo imagery in the spindrift dirge of the honky-tonk beatnik night. Dig?"[10]

In a retrospective review, Buddy Seigal was more impressed by Waits' "touchingly, unashamedly sentimental" songs, calling The Heart of Saturday Night perhaps the singer's most "mature, ingenuous and fully realized" album.[12] In 2003, it was ranked number 339 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time, his highest placing.

Track listing

All songs written and composed by Tom Waits.

Side one

No.TitleLength
1."New Coat of Paint"3:23
2."San Diego Serenade"3:30
3."Semi Suite"3:29
4."Shiver Me Timbers"4:26
5."Diamonds on My Windshield"3:12
6."(Looking for) The Heart of Saturday Night"3:53

Side two

No.TitleLength
1."Fumblin' with the Blues"3:02
2."Please Call Me, Baby"4:25
3."Depot, Depot"3:46
4."Drunk on the Moon"5:06
5."The Ghosts of Saturday Night (After Hours at Napoleone's Pizza House)"3:16
Total length:41:28

Personnel

All personnel credits adapted from the album's liner notes.[13]

Performer
Musicians
Technical personnel
Design personnel

Certifications

Region CertificationCertified units/Sales
United Kingdom (BPI)[14] Gold 100,000^
Summaries

^shipments figures based on certification alone

References

  1. ↑ "Releases". ANTI-. Retrieved March 6, 2018.
  2. 1 2 Ruhlmann, William. Review: The Heart of Saturday Night. Allmusic. Retrieved on 2009-08-05.
  3. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qt5Ecm78hj8&sns=fb
  4. 1 2 Art Director: Cal Schenkel Cover Art: Napoleon aka Lyn Lascaro 339) The Heart of Saturday Night : Rolling Stone
  5. ↑ Jacobs 2010
  6. ↑ Christgau, Robert (1981). "Tom Waits: The Heart of a Saturday Night". Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the '70s. Da Capo Press. ISBN 0306804093. Retrieved May 14, 2017.
  7. ↑ M. Deusner, Stephen (March 24, 2018). "Tom Waits: The Heart of Saturday Night". Pitchfork. Retrieved March 24, 2018.
  8. ↑ Columnist. "Review: The Heart of Saturday Night. Q: 100. October 1992.
  9. ↑ "Tom Waits: Album Guide". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on September 19, 2011.
  10. 1 2 Christgau, Robert (October 24, 1974). "Consumer Guide (49)". The Village Voice. Retrieved May 14, 2017.
  11. ↑ Maslin, Janet. "Tom Waits: On the Road, On the Town". The Village Voice. p. 106.
  12. ↑ Siegal, Buddy. Review: The Heart of Saturday Night. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved on 2009-08-05.
  13. ↑ The Heart of Saturday Night (CD). Tom Waits. Asylum Records. 1974. 7559-60597-2.
  14. ↑ "British album certifications – Tom Waits – The Heart of Saturday Night". British Phonographic Industry. Select albums in the Format field. Select Gold in the Certification field. Type The Heart of Saturday Night in the "Search BPI Awards" field and then press Enter.

Bibliography

  • Jacobs, Jay (2010). Wild Years: The Music and Myth of Tom Waits (illustrated, revised ed.). ECW Press. ISBN 9781554902613.
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