Tom Waits brings home Orphans

Pitchfork has the exciting news about what will probably be the most exciting 3-disc, 54-song collection released all year:

The 54-track release includes a 94-page booklet and over three hours of music, ranging from waltzes to blues and Celtic ballads to lullabies. According to Waits, "Orphans [contains] rough and tender tunes. Rumbas about mermaids, shuffles about train wrecks, tarantellas about insects, madrigals about drowning. Scared, mean, orphaned songs of rapture and melancholy. Songs that grew up hard. Songs of dubious origin rescued from cruel fate and now left wanting only to be cared for. Show that you are not afraid and take them home. They don't bite, they just need attention."

A number of tracks on Orphans were originally recorded for film and theatre, and some are reworkings of songs by other artists, including the Ramones, Daniel Johnston, Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht, Leadbelly, Jack Kerouac, and Charles Bukowski. Waits produced the epic album along with his wife and long-time collaborator Kathleen Brennan.