TOM WAITS - THE BLACK RIDER

1 Lucky Day Overture
2 The Black Rider
3 November
4 Just the Right Bullets
5 Black Box Theme
6 'Tain't No Sin
7 Flash Pan Hunter/Intro
8 That's the Way
9 The Briar and the Rose
10 Russian Dance
1 Gospel Train/Orchestra
2 I'll Shoot the Moon
3 Flash Pan Hunter
4 Crossroads
5 Gospel Train
6 Interlude
7 Oily Night
8 Lucky Day
9 The Last Rose of the Summer
10 Carnival

The Black Rider. Originally released in 1993 on Island Records, The Black Rider is Tom Waits’ 12th studio album. The Black Rider is a musical comedy/horror collaboration between artists: Robert Wilson (director/designer) writer/Beat guru, William S. Burroughs (text) and Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan (music). Not a cast album, this Island Records release is Tom’s interpretation and performance of the songs he had originally created for the stage production of The Black Rider. The music is a Waitsian concoction of pop, vaudeville, rock, cabaret and blues – a brew that is strangely familiar yet absolutely fresh.

The unlikely source material is rooted in German Romantic literature and the Weber opera, “Der Freischutz” (although Waits’ music does not quote from the Weber score), The story concerns a marksman who makes a pact with the devil (in the guise of a shadowy horseman) in order to win a shooting contest and hence claim his bride.

A cross between the musical, Cabaret and The Threepenny Opera, The Black Rider is brimming with the sort of inspired originality that can only flow from the mind of Tom Waits.