Small Change is the fourth studio album by singer and songwriter Tom Waits, released on September 21, 1976 on Asylum Records.

This resulted in Waits putting together a touring band - The Nocturnal Emissions, which consisted of Frank Vicari on tenor saxophone, FitzGerald Jenkins on bass guitar and Chip White on drums and vibraphone.

Small Change was recorded, direct to 2-track stereo tape, July 15, 19–21 and 29, 1976 at Wally Heider's Studio 3 in Hollywood[2] under the production of Bones Howe.

"[3] The album featured famed drummer Shelly Manne, and was, like Waits' previous albums, heavily jazz-influenced, with a lyrical style that owed influence to Raymond Chandler and Charles Bukowski as well as a vocal delivery influenced by Louis Armstrong, Dr. John and Howlin' Wolf.

The music, for the most part, consists of Waits' gravelly, rough voice, set against a backdrop of piano, upright bass, drums and saxophone.

Waits himself described the song's subject during a concert in Sydney, Australia in March 1979: "Uh, well I met this girl named Matilda.

"Yeah - hunkered down, drank the pint of rye, went home, threw up, and wrote 'Tom Traubert's Blues' [...] Every guy down there ... everyone I spoke to, a woman put him there.

Howe offers the following to his aspiring songwriters: "A battered old suitcase to a hotel someplace / And a wound that will never heal."

"[4] The song has been recorded by Rod Stewart on two 1993 albums, Lead Vocalist and Unplugged...and Seated under the title "Tom Traubert's Blues (Waltzing Matilda)".

The lyrics are about Waits' first job at Napoleone Pizza House in San Diego, which he began in 1965, at the age of 16.

At the time of the recording of Small Change Waits was drinking more and more heavily, and life on the road was starting to take its toll on him.

This is evident in the pessimism and cynicism that pervade the record, with many songs, such as "The Piano Has Been Drinking" and "Bad Liver and a Broken Heart" presenting a bare and honest portrayal of alcoholism, while also cementing Waits' hard-living reputation in the eyes of many fans.

The cast of characters, which includes hookers, strippers and small-time losers, are, for the most part, night-owls and drunks; people lost in a cold, urban world.

It was alleged that the go-go dancer pictured is Cassandra Peterson,[9] who portrayed the iconic Elvira, Mistress of the Dark.

Peterson, however, says she's not sure of the authenticity of this claim, stating, "I can’t say it’s completely not me—I can’t say it’s not true—but I have absolutely no recollection of doing it, if it is true....I do not remember the ’70s, for who-knows-what-all reasons.

[13] Small Change received critical reviews equal to or better than Waits' previous albums, and was at first a surprise commercial success, rising to #89 on the Billboard chart within two weeks of its release.

When asked in an interview with Mojo in 1999 if he shared many fans' view that Small Change was the crowning moment of his "beatnik-glory-meets-Hollywood-noir period" (i.e. from 1973 to 1980), Waits replied: Well, gee.