One From The Heart

One of Wait's best (and very under-rated). Original score composed by Tom Waits and performed by Tom Waits and Crystal Gayle. Tom Waits provided a colourful soundtrack for this 1982 Coppola film. These songs provide an important bridge between Waits' '70s work and the breakthrough of the following year's Swordfishtrombones. Many of the tunes are in the romantic ballad mode, jazzy torch songs based around waits' piano and occasionally a sympathetic orchestra. thanks to the contextual constrictions, One From The Heart finds waits at his most lyrically straightforward as he spars with an unlikely duet partner, Crystal Gayle. Surprisingly, Gayle's smooth, liquid tenor contrasts perfectly with Waits' gritty baritone rasp, the ultimate beauty and the beast situation. When the arrangements get a little more adventurous in the album's second half, it's like a finger pointing the way to the wild artistic freedom of Swordfishtrombones, but this album is full of affectingly beautiful songs that make it intrinsically desirable.