Bone Machine is the tenth studio album by American singer and musician Tom Waits, released by Island Records on September 8, 1992. It won a Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album and features guest appearances by David Hidalgo, Les Claypool, Bryan Mantia, and Keith Richards. The album marked Waits' return to studio albums, coming five years after his previous effort Franks Wild Years. Recorded in a room in the cellar area of Prairie Sun Recording studios, described by Waits as "just a cement floor and a hot water heater", the album is often noted for its rough, stripped-down, percussion-heavy style, as well as its dark lyrical themes revolving around death and chaos. The album covera blurry, black-and-white, close-up image of Waits apparently screaming while wearing a horned skullcap and protective goggleswas taken by filmmaker Jesse Dylan, son of Bob Dylan. Bone Machine was included on many "Best Albums of the 1990s" lists, being ranked at No. 49 by Pitchfork and No. 53 by Rolling Stone. The album was also included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.
Recording and production
Bone Machine was recorded and produced entirely at the Prairie Sun Recording studios in Cotati, California, in a room of Studio C known as "the Waits Room", located in the old cement hatchery rooms of the cellar of the buildings. Prairie Sun's studio head Mark "Mooka" Rennick said, " gravitated toward these 'echo' rooms and created the Bone Machine aural landscape. What we like about Tom is that he is a musicologist. And he has a tremendous ear. His talent is a national treasure." Waits said of the bare-bones studio, "I found a great room to work in, it's just a cement floor and a hot water heater. Okay, we'll do it here. It's got some good echo." References to the recording environment and process were made in the field-recorded interview segments made for the promotional CD release, Bone Machine: The Operator's Manual, which threaded together full studio tracks and conversation for a pre-recorded radio show format.
Track listing
Personnel
Performance
Tom Waits lead vocals, Chamberlin, percussion, guitar, sticks, piano, upright bass, conundrum, drums, acoustic guitar
"Earth Died Screaming" is featured in the 1995 film12 Monkeys.
"Dirt in the Ground" is featured in the 1998 film Jerry and Tom.
"Jesus Gonna Be Here" is featured in the 2005 film Domino, in which Waits also appears, and has been covered by gospel group The Blind Boys of Alabama.
"I Don't Wanna Grow Up" was covered by Ramones and was featured during the end credits of the first episode of Netflix's adult animated series Big Mouth, in the 2019 film Jojo Rabbit, and during the end credits of the 2019 film Shazam! It has also been covered by Petra Haden and Bill Frisell, Hayes Carll, Scarlett Johansson, Squeeze, and Emily Kinney's character Beth Greene on The Walking Dead episode "Infected".
"Dirt in the Ground" has been covered by Danish band Kellermensch.
Joan Baez's 2018 album used Whistle Down the Wind as its title, and includes a cover of Waits' song "Last Leaf".
