Nighthawks at the Diner: Day 7

Wrap up:

NaTD is a good album, I want to say that up front because I have some critical things to say about it, and I don't want to lose sight of the fact that I actually think it's a good record. TW is pushing buttons and cracking jokes, waxing poetic and riffing on poets. He's meta-lounge-singing, which is pretty new, and very different from when he was just lounge singing on THoSN.

When the stand-up comic stuff lands it is very funny, but when it misses it is incredibly distracting. I don't think it has a lot to do with the best songs on the album, to be honest. I think it certainly adds some character, and the obvious motive (to expose the listener to TW's stage presence from the comfort of their home without a dip in sound quality and before the home video revolution) is a benevolent one, but whether it serves to supplement the songs themselves or distract from them remains an open question.

That question, I'll grant, may be a moot one. The album is packaged as it is packaged, react to it how you will, but you can't improve the album by eliminating the stage banter, the album is as it is. I agree in more ways than one. The album is as it is, that much is obvious, and further I don't believe the songs particularly gain by eliminating the "(Intro)" tracks, perhaps "Better Off Without a Wife" feels a little more compact, and a little less goofy minus the long, onanistic introduction, but by-and-large they feel a little naked and a little decontextualized without the "(Intro)"s.

So how about those songs? There's a pretty decent rage of material on offer here, with the clear high point being "Spare Parts I (a Nocturnal Emission)," whose silly parenthetical doesn't do justice to the really raw bluesiness of the piece, as well as the lyrics which best show a balance between self-aware humor and real intelligence. The cover of "Big Joe..." is almost certainly my least favorite song on the record, the speak-sing earnestness doesn't really appeal to me and there's not a lot else happening to distract (the less said about the lyrics on that one, the better).

"Eggs and Sausage..." came on my local NPR affiliate the other night while at work, which has instantly warmed me to it, but I liked it anyway (and it has the best of the "(Intro)" tracks on the the album). Otherwise you're looking at a lot of songs with very clever jokes tucked between less clever ones, and very insightful and biting observation mingled with observations which fail to inspire.

I wouldn't say I disagree with my friends who have said that this is a hilarious album, and I wouldn't double-take at those who say it's their favorite TW album, but I would say that, knowing where he's headed, we're still climbing upwards. That said, better than CT and THoSN without a doubt.

Preview of Small Change (1976) is upcoming.

-K