Throughout the album lonesome travelers and restless strangers battle their lives with drink, religion and the active search for somewhere better than here. "A little trouble makes it worth the going/And a little rain never hurt no one/The world is round/And so I'll go around/You must risk something that matters," Waits sings on "A Little Rain," with David Phillips' pedal steel sweeping through the background. No one needs convincing. It's a song older than Waits himself — older than Hank Williams, older than Robert Johnson — that Waits is chasing, the simple mystery of where life goes: "I don't wanna float a broom/Fall in love and get married and then boom/How the hell did it get here so soon?/I don't wanna grow up." Albums this rich with spiritual longing prove the validity of that effort, no matter the odds.

• Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Singers of All Time: Tom Waits

• Rock and Roll Hall of Fame All Star Jam With Tom Waits and Neil Young, Darlene Love and Bruce Springsteen

• Rolling Stone's Original 1992 Review