The room › Artists › Tom Waits
Where to start with Tom Waits
Start with 9th & Hennepin — Rain Dogs, 1985. That is the track sitting closest to the centre of all 50 Tom Waits tracks in Zubissou Sounds — a listening room of 14,971 tracks placed one at a time by hand, not an algorithm.
This page is not a discography and not a ranking. It describes exactly one thing: the 50 Tom Waits tracks that one person put in one room, and where they sit relative to each other. The starting point above is chosen by a rule you can check — of the 50 tracks, it is the one nearest the average position on the four knobs the room runs on, and where two sit equally close the one on a named record wins. Nothing here calls any record better than any other.
The mood knob swings 57 points across these tracks, the widest of the four — it is the axis this artist actually travels along in this room.
Three ways in
The one track, if you only play one
9th & Hennepin — Rain Dogs, 1985. Of the 49 Tom Waits tracks here that have actually been listened to, this one sits closest to the average of them across the four knobs the room runs on. The other 1 arrived carrying the default for their genre, and averaging a placeholder in would move the centre towards nothing. It is the least surprising thing among the tracks that were read, which is what an entry point should be.
If you want the melancholy end
Cold Water — Mule Variations, 1999. The lowest mood reading of any Tom Waits track in the room (22 out of 100). This is as far towards melancholy as the collection goes.
If you want the euphoric end
Clap Hands - 2023 Remaster — Rain Dogs (2023 Remaster), 1985. The highest mood reading here, at 79 out of 100 — a 57-point swing across the collection towards euphoric.
Where Tom Waits sits in the room
Zubissou Sounds does not have playlists or genres you click. It has knobs. Every track carries a position on each one, set by hand when the track was added, and you find music by setting the room to a state rather than by searching for a name. These are Tom Waits's average coordinates and the range they cover.
| Knob | Average | Range | Low → high |
|---|---|---|---|
| mood | 45 | 22–79 | melancholy → euphoric |
| energy | 49 | 25–75 | ambient → driving |
| density | 57 | 25–65 | sparse → wall |
| head · body | 59 | 21–78 | cerebral → groove |
All four run 0–100. They are placed by a person, not derived from audio analysis or from any streaming service's feature data.
What is here, record by record
| Album | Year | Tracks |
|---|---|---|
| Rain Dogs | 1985 | 18 |
| Mule Variations | 1999 | 16 |
| Closing Time | 1973 | 12 |
| Bad As Me | 2011 | 1 |
| Small Change (Remastered) | 1976 | 1 |
| Rain Dogs (2023 Remaster) | 1985 | 1 |
| Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards (Remastered) | 2006 | 1 |
Every Tom Waits track in the room
| Track | Album | Year |
|---|---|---|
| Closing Time | Closing Time | 1973 |
| Grapefruit Moon | Closing Time | 1973 |
| I Hope That I Don't Fall In Love With You | Closing Time | 1973 |
| Ice Cream Man | Closing Time | 1973 |
| Little Trip To Heaven [On The Wings Of Your Love] | Closing Time | 1973 |
| Lonely | Closing Time | 1973 |
| Martha | Closing Time | 1973 |
| Midnight Lullaby | Closing Time | 1973 |
| Ol' 55 | Closing Time | 1973 |
| Old Shoes [& Picture Postcards] | Closing Time | 1973 |
| Rosie | Closing Time | 1973 |
| Virginia Avenue | Closing Time | 1973 |
| I Wish I Was In New Orleans (In The Ninth Ward) | Small Change (Remastered) | 1976 |
| 9th & Hennepin | Rain Dogs | 1985 |
| Anywhere I Lay My Head | Rain Dogs | 1985 |
| Big Black Mariah | Rain Dogs | 1985 |
| Blind Love | Rain Dogs | 1985 |
| Bride Of Rain Dog | Rain Dogs | 1985 |
| Cemetery Polka | Rain Dogs | 1985 |
| Diamonds And Gold | Rain Dogs | 1985 |
| Downtown Train | Rain Dogs | 1985 |
| Gun Street Girl | Rain Dogs | 1985 |
| Hang Down Your Head | Rain Dogs | 1985 |
| Jockey Full Of Bourbon | Rain Dogs | 1985 |
| Midtown | Rain Dogs | 1985 |
| Rain Dogs | Rain Dogs | 1985 |
| Singapore | Rain Dogs | 1985 |
| Tango Till They're Sore | Rain Dogs | 1985 |
| Time | Rain Dogs | 1985 |
| Union Square | Rain Dogs | 1985 |
| Walking Spanish | Rain Dogs | 1985 |
| Clap Hands - 2023 Remaster | Rain Dogs (2023 Remaster) | 1985 |
| Big In Japan | Mule Variations | 1999 |
| Black Market Baby | Mule Variations | 1999 |
| Chocolate Jesus | Mule Variations | 1999 |
| Cold Water | Mule Variations | 1999 |
| Come On Up To The House | Mule Variations | 1999 |
| Eyeball Kid | Mule Variations | 1999 |
| Filipino Box Spring Hog | Mule Variations | 1999 |
| Georgia Lee | Mule Variations | 1999 |
| Get Behind The Mule | Mule Variations | 1999 |
| Hold On | Mule Variations | 1999 |
| House Where Nobody Lives | Mule Variations | 1999 |
| Lowside Of The Road | Mule Variations | 1999 |
| Picture In A Frame | Mule Variations | 1999 |
| Pony | Mule Variations | 1999 |
| Take It With Me | Mule Variations | 1999 |
| What's He Building In There | Mule Variations | 1999 |
| Walk Away | Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards (Remastered) | 2006 |
| Chicago | Bad As Me | 2011 |
Near neighbours in this room
These are the artists whose average knob position sits nearest to Tom Waits's in this room. It is a coordinate match, not a claim that they sound alike.
- Where to start with Elvis Costello — americana / rock, 16 tracks
- Where to start with Tinariwen — desert blues, 46 tracks
- Where to start with billy woods — experimental hip hop, 12 tracks
What the open databases say
MusicBrainz lists Tom Waits as a solo artist, from Pomona, the United States and born in 1949. Its contributors tag the artist folk, experimental, blues rock, rock and jazz. These are the open database's facts, not mine — you can check them against the MusicBrainz entry.
Questions
How many Tom Waits tracks are in Zubissou Sounds?
There are 50, across 7 albums. 50 of them carry a date, running from 1973 to 2011. That is the whole of what this room holds — it is one person's collection, not a discography.
Is this a best-of, or a ranking?
No. Nothing here is ranked and no track is called better than another. The starting point is picked by arithmetic — the track closest to the centre of all the others on four measured axes — and the rule is printed above so you can disagree with it.
Where do the knob numbers come from?
They are set by hand, one track at a time, by the person who added the track. They are not audio analysis and not a Spotify feature. Mood, energy, density and the head/body balance each run 0 to 100. 49 of these 50 tracks have been read that way. The other 1 arrived with the default for their genre and nobody has listened to them yet, so they are left out of the centre, the ends and the spread quoted above.
Can I listen to these here?
Not yet from this page. Zubissou Sounds is in private beta — the room itself plays through Spotify, and 50 of these 50 tracks are matched to a Spotify ID and ready to play the moment you are in. The waitlist form is at the bottom of this page.