3 Things to Know About the Title of Tom Waits’s Rain Dogs

The title refers to animals that have lost their scent Rain washes away the scent trail, leaving them unable to find their way home.

It’s a metaphor for the album’s characters The people in the songs are similarly displaced, wandering without direction or belonging.

The phrase is not a common idiom Waits borrowed it from a specific observation about how rain affects tracking animals, not from everyday speech.