Like looking down a musical street through the yellow windows of the evening train, Tom Waits' new triple-disc collection ORPHANS is a combination of lonely Greyhound bus trip and roller coaster ride. 30 plus years have passed since the piano-powered debut "Closing Time," and with each decade in its wake, Waits has only found newer eccentricities: 1983 was the year of "Swordfishtrombones," the album which signaled Waits' shedding his thin skin for beautiful rags; by 1993, "Bone Machine" found Waits questioning mortality whilst attacking his sound with low-fi production and apocalyptic junkyard percussion; in 2003, Waits would be working on "Real Gone," which was even grungier and far weirder than even "Bone Machine," incorporating beat boxing and amusing references to sock hop dance fads.

Waits' bold transformations in style and sound would likely kill any popular musician's career. However, it's been nothing but fruitful for Waits, who is growing into seniority with far more grace than a lot of the limelight-grabbing rock stars in his time. Waits has always been one of rock's greatest storytellers, a man who has fashioned cinematic stories of loveless diner regulars, two-bit hustlers, runaways and outsiders with imagery that continues to grab your mind even now. "Small Change" from 1976 is perhaps one of the man's greatest records period in my opinion, second only to the 1985 masterwork "Rain Dogs," and songs like "Tom Traubert's Blues," "Invitation to the Blues" and "The One That Got Away" have only gotten better (or, in the case of "I Wish I Was In New Orleans," more meaningful).

The music has often times taken a backseat to his words, which seems natural but is also quite a shame. ORPHANS rectifies this by sequencing 54 of "lost" Waits songs, 30 of which are newly released, in three helpful categories. "Brawlers" is as dangerous as a preacher waving a gun around, chock full of blues, boogie and barroom boppers (think some of the grittier moments from 1980's "Heartattack and Vine" LP). "Bawlers" is the sound of a drinking piano on the verge of heaving, spilling his guts both figuratively and literally (like a fine cut from "Foreign Affairs"). And "Bastards" are the twisted, off-kilter products of a mind steeped in what I believe Mrs. Tom Waits, Kathleen Brennan, called "macabaret" (memories of "Franks Wild Years"). Through the art of classification, one can now approach without discomfiting un-anticipation the craggy, eccentric musical styles that Waits and Brennan have so expertly redefined and resurrected over their collaborative past.

Opening the "Brawlers" platter, Lie to Me bears the freshness of playing a never-before-heard rockabilly record from the 1950s. It flaunts a groove many of the numerous revisionist rockers would kill for (complete with hand-claps and short yet smokin' guitar solo), and Waits voice is so sly and playful it's as if all those years of alcohol and cigarette-fueled vocal transformations never happened. "Slap me baby, give me your grief/I have no use for the truth," he drawls, unleashing a kind of Elvis-like sexiness that seems strange yet natural coming from Waits.

LowDown brings the tempo to a slow-churning 12-bar boogie, the better for Waits to rattle off in Howlin' Wolf style a succession of spirited observations about a girl who‘s like "a big red flag in a mean bullpen." Oldest son Casey Waits plays the drums, and he keeps a tight rhythm throughout all three minutes of this hot track. Originally written for John Hammond's 2001 "Wicked Grin" album, 2:19 is a straight blues ballad about losing all you have in a flood except for your woman, who's taking the train. Originally conceived by Kath in a dream and scrapped from the sessions for "Mule Variations" in 1999, the junky mambo Fish in the Jailhouse blends swinging saxophones and sirens as an escape artist fantasizes over fashioning a fishbone skeleton key ("You can bet your freedom I'm gonna clean my plate").

Bottom of the World is another of Waits' plaintive odes to the people on the fringe, with its 13-year-old runaway narrator encountering characters such as Satchel Puddin', Blackjack Ruby and Scarface Ron. They are the kind of people who dine on fried black swan and use eggs to style their hair. Anyone who fell in love with his music before will remember why they did here: Waits drops the bravado from the previous songs and lets his weary, husky voice paint a picture of the world. The track originally surfaced in a documentary called "Long Gone" from 2003. Lucinda, in which Texan hustler William the Pleaser is killed by the titular object of his desire, is the first of many outtakes in which Waits eschews instruments and delivers the main beat vocally, recalling the riskiest change in pace Waits achieved with "Real Gone." All the Time adds layers of live instrumentation on top of Waits' voice.

After a couple of inspired covers, a tremolo-charged take on Leadbelly's Ain't Goin' Down to the Well and the uplifting gospel hymn Lord I've Been Changed (which waits heard as a boy thanks to the Staple Singers, who also might have helped inspire the Waits original "Jesus Gonna Be Here"), Puttin' on the Dog arrives, bringing back memories of "Jockey Full of Bourbon." And then Tom Waits does something completely different: he sings an explicitly political song about the Israel-Palestinian conflicts that raises the same questions about God that his soldier's lament "Day After Tomorrow" did in 2004. Road to Peace spares no one the grisly details about how entire lives can be suddenly lost for a cause that stands against the very notion of peace: "In a video that they found at the home of Abdel Madi Shabneh/He held a kalashnikov riffle, and he spoke with the voice like a boy/He was an excellent student, he studied so hard, it was as if he had a future/He told his mother he had a test that day, out along the road to peace." Throughout the song, which name checks both Kissinger and Bush, Jr., Waits keeps his humanity in check and refuses outright mudslinging. Marc Ribot contributes his reliable painterly guitar fills throughout the song's gut-wrenching seven minutes.

Another highlight, Sea of Love, comes from the soundtrack to the Al Pacino-starring movie of the same name. This is one of the Waits rarities I've been really clamoring for. Eschewing the lush romanticism of the well-known original by Phil Philips & the Twilights, the cavernous drums, fractured shards of blues guitar and Waits' cracked vocals pull something far more foreboding and longing out of the tune. "I want to tell you how much I love you/But I'm drowning in a sea of love," he sings early on. Waits' take is equally as soulful, but in a much more disturbing manner. "Walk Away" comes from the "Dead Man Walking" soundtrack, and has the sort of Bible-referencing gallows humor reminiscent of "Walking Spanish." The first of two Ramones tributes, The Return of Jackie and Judy reinterprets the song as smoldering T-Rex blues rock with a B.B. King-tinged vocal.

"Brawlers" ends with Buzz Fledderjohn, the B-side to the "Hold On" single, and Rains on Me, which was co-written by that Jitterbug Boy, Chuck E. Weiss. The former, an ode to an eccentric neighbor from childhood, was recorded live outside the studio to achieve a kind of authenticity and grit Waits admired from old blues 78s, and those are a real dog's barking and not an added effect a la the rooster crows from "I'll Be Gone." The latter sets the stage for the "Bawlers" disc, as this track is Delta Blues served up with a hint of affection for dear friends who drifted away: "Louie Lista and Marchese...Robert Sheehan and Paul Body."

Disc two compiles the "Bawlers," or the "grand weepers." Bend Down the Branches (from Chris Wedge's animated short "Bunny") opens things up on a gracious, operatic level, but lasts only a minute long. It's the kind of song you'd play to a kid after you tell him a bedtime story (speaking of which, Tom recites one later on the "Bastards" disc, so stay tuned). The demo-sounding You Can Never Hold Back Spring, written for Roberto Benigni's 2005 not-yet-released-in-the-U.S. film "The Tiger and the Snow," plucks your heartstrings with equal pleasure, and lasts a little longer.

Those who recall Waits' songs from "Big Bad Love" have their interest rekindled with the inclusions of both Long Way Home (which was covered by Norah Jones a couple years after the song's release) and Jayne's Blue Wish, which appears near the end of the disc. "Bawlers" is where you'll find a lot of the material from various soundtracks: the eerie Little Drop of Poison (originally from "End of Violence," later featured in "Shrek 2"); World Keeps Turning (from "Pollock"), which feels like getting back to "The Heart of Saturday Night"; and a second "Dead Man Walking" orphan, The Fall of Troy, written by Waits in the wake of a real-life shooting in New Orleans which involved two kids.

The murder ballad Widow's Grove waltzes with an accordion and violin accompaniment that counters the delicate darkness of the lyrics. Shiny Things comes from the same "Woyzeck" songbook which birthed the tracks on "Blood Money," but the re-recorded version here doesn't share that album's cynical, carnival-styled madness. Tell It to Me (working title "Louise") is a song that Waits wrote during the "Bone Machine" sessions, but came to fruition originally for Ramblin' Jack Elliott. It sounds like the ghost of Roy Orbison. Never Let Go is an actual outtake from the 1992 album, originally played at the end titles of "American Heart." It's as close to a power ballad as you're likely to get from Waits, with the immortal line "You can send me to hell, but I'll never let go of your hand." Fannin Street is another selection originally from his collaboration with John Hammond on "Wicked Grin," and is an explicit tribute to blues master Lead belly (whose Goodnight Irene is covered by Tom with boozy, multi-tracked chorus vocals), whereas Little Man was a 1991 gift to Waits from Mississippi jazzman Teddy Edwards.

A stately jazz song about a one-night stand, It's Over had two jobs in the past, first turning up on the soundtrack to the 1999 movie "Liberty Heights" and the second being a part of the score to "Woyzeck." But If I Have to Go has had a longer shelf life, having originally been composed for the theatre production of "Franks Wild Years." The production makes it fittingly sound like an actual lost recording from the sessions for the 1987 album of the same name. The "In the Neighborhood"-rewrite Take Care of All My Children is the set's true firstborn child, a track as old as 1984 (the year the documentary from which it came from, "Streetwise," was released). Down There by the Train is a "Bone Machine" orphan (positing the notion of even the most notorious sinners being worthy of healing) that was adopted by the immortal Johnny Cash for his first "American Recordings" album.

It's hard to believe that Waits' take on The Ramones' Danny Says (he must really be partial to End of the Century) didn't turn up on the "We're a Happy Family" tribute album in place of "The Return of Jackie & Judy." But recorded now, the added wear in Waits' voice makes the song sound even more lonely and touching. The disc wraps up with an equally husky take on the Sinatra standard Young at Heart, which replaces trumpet with pedal steel guitar and gets away with it.

The third disc contains the "Bastards," songs too strange to be categorized strictly as either rock or jazz. The stomping What Keeps Mankind Alive?, from Brecht & Weill's "Threepenny Opera," surfaced in a 1985 compilation, when the spirit of these two composers were undoubtedly felt all over "Rain Dogs," primarily on the opening salvo of "Singapore." The mix of accordion, banjo and tuba on this track should inspire the kind of nightmare Waits offers up as a Children's Story on the following track. This was taken wholesale from Büchner's original "Woyzeck" story, and Waits relishes in reciting every disturbing image ("And when he finally got to the moon, the moon was a piece of rotten wood"). Not even Disney is safe from Waits, as he turns Heigh Ho into something those colonists underground would sing as the trucks unload beyond the gopher holes. Army Ants connects humanity with the insect world in the most unsettling and bleakly funny of ways ("If one places a minute amount of liquor on a scorpion," he snarls, "it will instantly go mad and sting itself to death").

The Skip Spence tribute Books of Moses is clanging swamp blues not too far from the highlights of "Mule Variations," and segues strangely well into the instrumental Bone Chain, in which a harmonica is all that backs up Waits' mouthed beat, mumbled words and whistles. The beat boxing doesn't stop there, as Dog Door,Spidey's Wild Ride and the Daniel Johnston cover King Kong find Waits laying down his own brand of hobo hip-hop rhythm. However, the Johnston cover has such an impassioned vocal behind it that the music takes a backseat to Waits' interpretation of the tortured young man's encapsulation of the classic film.

The straight bluegrass of the traditional Two Sisters (wherein Waits sings of a jealous sister who pays a miller to let her youngest sibling drown) is followed by First Kiss, a poem originally written in 1991 but reinterpreted as a playful ode to Kathleen ("And she made her own whiskey and gave cigarettes to kids/And she'd been struck by lightning seven or eight times"). Redrum is a freaky instrumental not unlike "Knife Chase" from "Blood Money," whilst a reading of Charles Bukowski's Nirvana is arranged in the same manner as "Children's Story." There's also a collaboration with novelist William Kennedy, the bleak nursery rhyme Poor Little Lamb, but it seems Waits finds more of a kindred spirit in Jack Kerouac, instilling coarse emotion and sadness into two selections which crib from the poet's "On the Road" book, Home I'll Never Be and On the Road, which closes the third disc.

Wrapping up my overview of "Bastards" are The Pontiac and Altar Boy. On the former, a giddy spoken word piece recorded live in a car for a 1987 compilation called "Smack My Crack" and delivered to one of his children, he adapts his father-in-law's speech about all the classic cars he was fond of and whatever happened to them ("Your mom loved that Caddy: independent rear suspension, Landau top, good tires...gas hog. I swear it had the power to repair itself"). The latter comes from the "Alice" stage adaptation, a torch song with a twist. The package I got came with a pair of untitled bonus tracks, the live Dog Treat and Missing My Son, both of which are classic Waits monologues that showcase his eccentric wit to the hilt.

The collection is available in "paperback" due to popular demand, but the hardcover version I got boasted a nice signature by Tom Waits and it comes replete with a 94-page booklet with lyrics, credits and classic photos, including one which looks like it came from the set of Jim Jarmusch's "Down by Law" in 1985.

ORPHANS is more than a mere odds-and-sods compilation, or an expensive gift to Waits devotees. For anyone who has not taken the plunge into Waits' eclectic sound, there is something rather comprehensive about the three discs of material the set offers. It kind of covers every arc Waits stopped by during his entire career, not stopping shy of the many influences he has absorbed and which refreshes through the gravelly appeal of his voice. The man's got soul, and even as he stares down the darkness and pain of the world, the results are nothing short of inspiring. Even if hell boils over and heaven is full, ORPHANS lets you have some of the manna from above, sprinkling down like confetti.

DISC ONE - "Brawlers"
1. Lie to Me
2. LowDown
3. 2:19
4. Fish in the Jailhouse
5. Bottom of the World
6. Lucinda
7. Ain't Goin' Down to the Well
8. Lord I've Been Changed
9. Puttin' on the Dog
10. Road to Peace
11. All the Time
12. The Return of Jackie and Judy
13. Walk Away
14. Sea of Love
15. Buzz Fledderjohn
16. Rains on Me
DISC TWO - "Bawlers"
1. Bend Down the Branches
2. You Can Never Hold Back Spring
3. Long Way Home
4. Widow's Grove
5. Little Drop of Poison
6. Shiny Things
7. World Keeps Turning
8. Tell It to Me
9. Never Let Go
10. Fannin Street
11. Little Man
12. It's Over
13. If I Have to Go
14. Goodnight Irene
15. The Fall of Troy
16. Take Care of All My Children
17. Down There by the Train
18. Danny Says
19. Jayne's Blue Wish
20. Young at Heart
DISC THREE - "Bastards"
1. What Keeps Mankind Alive?
2. Children's Story
3. Heigh Ho
4. Army Ants
5. Books of Moses
6. Bone Chain
7. Two Sisters
8. First Kiss
9. Dog Door
10. Redrum
11. Nirvana
12. Home I'll Never Be
13. Poor Little Lamb
14. Altar Boy
15. The Pontiac
16. Spidey's Wild Ride
17. King Kong
18. On the Road
19. Dog Treat [unlisted]
20. Missing My Son [unlisted]

Recommended: Yes

Great Music to Play While: Driving