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Whether it’s a sentimental attachment owing to its familiarity from my childhood I don’t know, but Heartattack and Vine, an apparently lesser-known transitional album from 1980, is far and away my favourite Tom Waits record, and the one I turn to when times are hard. In 1980, so the official history goes, Waits was on the verge of a breakthrough: living in New York City for the first time in his career, having just scored the Coppola film One from the Heart (“Broken Bicycles” is a high point), and alone as he ever had been or would be, he was only months from meeting future wife and collaborator Kathleen Brennan, who turned him onto Beefheart, scorned his sentimental balladeer former persona, and kickstarted the creative explosion of Swordfishtrombones, Raindogs, Frank’s Wild Years and everything since. Now don’t get me wrong, I was raised on Raindogs, I must have seen the Frank’s-centric concert film Big Time 10 times, and I worshipped at the altar of Marc Ribot via the live version of “Sixteen Shells From a Thirty Ought Six” (a choice cut of Swordfish), but if it’s emotional investment you’re after I don’t think you can go past Heartattack. “Ruby’s Arms”, “On the Nickel”, “Jersey Girl” – when I’m in the mood there’s almost nothing that can reach that deep inside of me, that speaks to me so sadly yet reassures me I’m not alone. Add to that some of the filthiest, lowdown, stark minimal blues hollers of his career – “Downtown”, the title track, “Till the Money Runs Out” – and a crack, 100% on the money, ruthless set of collaborators (drummer John Thomassie, in particular, is a precision groove machine), and you’ve got the late-night-in-a-strange-room-with-no-one-to-call-a-friend album par excellence. “How do the angels get to sleep when the devil leaves his porchlight on?” They don’t, but records like Heartattack & Vine make insomnia all right.