Closing Time

Closing Time is Tom Waits's 1973 debut, a collection of intimate, piano-led songs that blend folk, blues and jazz influences into smoky, late-night balladry. Waits's younger, mellower voice and literate, narrative lyrics evoke small-time characters and domestic scenes, supported by spare arrangements and subtle jazz touches that create a warm, melancholic atmosphere and established the idiosyncratic songwriting persona he would develop further in later records.