“I love ya, pretty baby, but I always take the long way home.”

Tom Waits’ Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers, and Bastards hit stores last year, much the delight of those who love the boozy ol’ tomcat, as well as the chagrin of those who think his songs are about as pleasant as listening to a jackhammer at three in the morning. Perhaps the detractors will never acquire a taste for the man’s distinctive brand of musical allure, but the followers can rejoice! For Orphans is a sprawling, three-disc, fifty-six track mammoth of an album that highlights almost everything there is to love about the beat poet of music.

Essentially three albums, each disc in this set has it’s own distinctive feel. Brawlers sports fiery bar-fight songs in which Waits snarls as if he’s about to bite someone’s jugular, Bawlers is a collection of cry-your-eyes-out numbers in which he sounds like he’s going to do just that, and Bastards is an experimental collage of unused, avant-garde pieces where he sounds like he’s having a whole lot of fun. The whole album is solid, but Bawlers is the jewel in the crown, with some of the most beautiful and affecting songs to come out in quite some time. Of course, this is largely due to Waits’ gravelly old barfly voice, which was famously described by Gary Graff as sounding “like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months and then taken outside and run over with a car.” While it’s certainly not conventional and definitely not pretty, there’s a world-weary charm to be heard in that raspy growl, which makes Tom Waits more than just a singer/songwriter. The pop stars can belt the ballads at the top of their beautifully smooth voices, and in that regard they will always seem alien to us, but Waits seems like he’s singing in a dingy bar just down the street. But his voice doesn’t stand on it’s own; rather it accentuates his evocative, sophisticated lyrics and lovely melodies. Indeed, there’s something quite hypnotic about such a harsh voice singing such pretty songs, and the result is delightful.

Orphans would be a great album to use when introducing someone to Tom Waits—the man’s released numerous albums over thirty-four years, but this one plays like a kaleidoscope of his career. It may be long and hard to listen to in one sitting, but it’s a magnificent showcase of what this guy’s all about.