The songs are grouped thematically: “Man V. Machine” on disc 1, “Man V. Nature” on disc 2 and “Man V. Man (And Woman, Too)” on disc 3. “These songs are crude and rudimentary pulp,” singer Tom Waits writes in an admiring introductory essay. “These were the oral tabloids of the day.” With 30 of these 70 songs reissued on CD for the first time, they also offer an unmatched street-level view of momentous events, from storms to wrecks to murder most foul.