Tom Waits' catalogue abounds with ways in which he's twisted the Great American Songbook into knots that only he could tie. Whether he's juxtaposing guttural blues moans with whimsical percussion on "Earth Died Screaming", performing a mutant theatrical jaunt on “Rain Dogs” or telling a twisting tale of desperation on the loungy “Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis”, Waits takes the longstanding history of song and makes it his own.