Frank's Wild Years

Frank's Wild Years is the tenth studio album by Tom Waits, released in August 1987 on Island Records and subtitled Un Operachi Romantico in Two Acts. Waits considered it the third installment in a loose trilogy that began with Swordfishtrombones and continued through Rain Dogs, and it marks the fullest flowering of his songwriting partnership with his wife, Kathleen Brennan.

The album grew out of a stage musical Waits and Brennan wrote together, also called Frank's Wild Years, which premiered at Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre in June 1986 with Waits in the title role. Waits described the tone he and Brennan were chasing as something like Eraserhead crossed with It's a Wonderful Life. The play follows Frank O'Brien, an accordion player who leaves a small town chasing his own legend, flames out in Las Vegas, and ends up dreaming his way back home from a park bench where he is slowly freezing to death.

Critics praised the record's unconventional arrangements, built around instruments like marimba, baritone horn, and pump organ rather than a standard rock band. NME ranked it the fifth-best album of 1987, and it has been cited by Elvis Costello among his favorite records.