Foreign Affairs is an album by Tom Waits, released in 1977 on Elektra Entertainment. It was produced by Bones Howe, and featured Bette Midler singing a duet with Waits on "I Never Talk to Strangers".
Contents[]
[hide] *1 Production
Production[edit][]
Bones Howe, the album's producer, remembers the album's original concept and production approach thus:
[Waits] talked to me about doing this other material [...] He said, "I'm going to do the demos first, and then I'm gonna let you listen to them. Then we should talk about what it should be." I listened to the material and said, "It's like a black-and-white movie." That's where the cover came from. The whole idea that it was going to be a black-and-white movie. It's the way it seemed to me when we were putting it together. Whether or not it came out that way, I don't have any idea, because there's such metamorphosis when you're working on [records]. They change and change.[1]
Artwork[edit][]
Pictured on the cover with Waits is a Native American woman named Marsheila Cockrell, who worked at the box office of The Troubadour in Los Angeles. "She was a girl who was... not a girlfriend but she thought she was a girlfriend."[2]
For the album cover Waits wanted to convey the film-noir mood that coloured so many of the songs. Veteran Hollywood portraitist George Hurrell was hired to shoot Waits, both alone and in a clutch with a shadowy female whose ring-encrusted right hand clamped a passport to his chest. The back-cover shot of Tom was particularly good, casting him as a slicked-back hoodlum—half matinee idol, half hair-trigger psychopath. The inner sleeve depicted the soused singer clawing at the keys of his Tropicana upright.[2]
Track listing[edit][]
All tracks written by Tom Waits, except where noted.
Side one
| No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Cinny's Waltz" (Instrumental) | 2:17 | ||
| 2. | "Muriel" | 3:33 | ||
| 3. | "I Never Talk to Strangers" | 3:38 | ||
| 4. | "Medley: Jack & Neal/California, Here I Come" | "California, Here I Come" by Joseph Meyer, Al Jolson and Buddy De Sylva | 5:01 | |
| 5. | "A Sight for Sore Eyes" | 4:40 |
Side two
| No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Potter's Field" | Words: Waits - Music: Bob Alcivar | 8:40 | |
| 2. | "Burma-Shave" | 6:34 | ||
| 3. | "Barber Shop" | 3:54 | ||
| 4. | "Foreign Affair" | 3:46 |
Personnel[edit][]
- Gene Cipriano – clarinet solos on "Potter's Field"
- Jim Hughart – bass
- Shelly Manne – drums
- Bette Midler – vocals on "I Never Talk to Strangers"
- Jack Sheldon – trumpet solos
- Frank Vicari – tenor saxophone solos
- Tom Waits – piano, vocals