Hec, what's this book about?
It's part of Continuum Press 33 1/3 series. Inspired by the British Film Institute series of monographs on individual films, this will be me writing about Tom Waits' Swordfishtrombones.
They've allowed tremendous latitude in the series for how the writer can approach the subject. Joe Pernice wrote a novella centered around The Smiths' Meat is Murder. Colin Meloy wrote a memoir about The Replacements' Let It Be.
Mine will not be a novella, nor a memoir, but it won't be a straight history of the recording either. I will cover the recording and bits of bio, but I really want to use view the record through sidelong looks at some other artists who intrigue me from Joseph Cornell to Edgar Ulmer (the German emigre director who specialized in very cheap, very potent B-movies like Detour and Black Cat) and George Herriman (Krazy Kat) - among others. It's about getting into the particular landscape that Waits creates with language and sonic textures.
There will be crows and mules.