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| Track list: 1. Misery Is The River Of The World 2. Everything Goes to Hell 3. Coney Island Baby 4. All the World Is Green 5. God's Away On Business 6. Another Man's Vine 7. Knife Chase (Instrumental) 8. Lullaby 9. Starving In The Belly Of A Whale 10. The Part You Throw Away 11. Woe 12. Calliope ( instrumental ) 13. A Good Man is Hard to Find Running time: 37 minutes Released: 2002 |
Blood Money was released along with Alice, or darn close to it at least. I don't think it is in the same league as its companion, but there are a couple of tracks that jump out simply from the names.
The first of those is our opener. Misery is the River of the World isn't exactly a phrase that trips off the tongue of most people but Waits carries it off with aplomb. Like Alice, this is tumbledown, vaudeville, tarnished - and yet the value of what lies underneath is clear. There is nothing tuneful about the song but it is utterly compelling, an insistent stomping accompanying Waits gruff intonation over a miscellany of other sounds. Atmospheric. Intense... but not quite Alice, you know? The connection between the releases makes that thought unshakable and it is unfortunate because it does this part of our troubadour's output a disservice.
Everything Goes to Hell is not in the same league for compulsion. It shares a lot of characteristics with what came before, and has a sense of place and understated appeal about it, but simply not as strong. It does fully conjure images of dirty cramped alleyways and rats scuttling away from tramps coming out of tents though, so it is with some relief that we divert into Coney Island Baby with its slightly off-key piano and Waits in disheveled crooner mode, a trick he pulls off wonderfully. This song is far more melodic than the prior two, but no less redolent of decay - like a seaside town that hasn't seen a visitor in a decade. There is a weariness and a melancholy, but also a refusal to simply lay down and die - opening up each day in case this is the one that the hordes return.
I really, really, like the imagery - I find it really satisfying in its vividness.
All the World is Green is an uplifting title, and my recollection is that the chorus is similarly positive, so I am surprised when the main musical theme that kicks it off is almost as dark as that on Misery is the River of the World. Its funny what we recall and what we forget, even about the same darn thing. I tell you now that I am remembering that I like this album. I really do not recall what prompted me to pick up this pair of discs and start collecting Waits, but I am so glad I did. He is amongst my most listened to if you believe LastFM - in the top 10 - and yet... it feels like I never really progressed past listening to this and to Alice.
Another Man's Vine is the first track that is not familiar when it begins, and it has a sleaziness to it, dispensing with some of the grime and decay for a salubrious tone, suggestive horns. Truly, is there anyone other than Waits who can conjure visualisations so strongly through a tune? At that point I am broken out of my thought pattern by realising I needed to adjust the track list, which was missing the horrificly tense Knife Chase for some reason. As if to counter the spiky danger of the chase, Lullaby arrives, just proving that Waits, despite the gravel in his larynx, can soothe as well as he can suggest. That said the song feels like a repeat of No-one Knows I'm Gone.
Starving in the Belly of a Whale is something else. Gruff, insistent and incessant, and that's before we hit the chorus where the repetition of the title is really magnetic. It is not a song that is comfortable to listen to but it is majestic as a tour de force - dragging you along behind it like a rider fallen from his panicked horse trapped in the stirrups and reins. As much as I am surprised that Tom Waits is quite so high up my list of most listened to artists (I suppose his prolific nature and sizable back catalog help him surface in shuffles), it is precisely this kind of grab-you-by-the-scruff type number that typifies his appeal.
The disc ends with a couple of short numbers - interludes really, though they are not referred to as such - squeezed in before the closer. A Good Man is Hard to Find is a lovely tune, and for once here Waits' distinctive vocal may not necessarily be the best to sit alongside the muted melody. It's not bad (after all, if you like Waits at all you would never call his voice bad; if you don't like him you'd be justified to say "the man can't sing!" at this juncture), but not quite as made for the composition somehow. The tone of this final track is upbeat and I think that is where the disconnect comes in. I find myself distracted for what feels like a second, and then jarred by the silence. The track has ended and so has the listen.
The first of those is our opener. Misery is the River of the World isn't exactly a phrase that trips off the tongue of most people but Waits carries it off with aplomb. Like Alice, this is tumbledown, vaudeville, tarnished - and yet the value of what lies underneath is clear. There is nothing tuneful about the song but it is utterly compelling, an insistent stomping accompanying Waits gruff intonation over a miscellany of other sounds. Atmospheric. Intense... but not quite Alice, you know? The connection between the releases makes that thought unshakable and it is unfortunate because it does this part of our troubadour's output a disservice.
Everything Goes to Hell is not in the same league for compulsion. It shares a lot of characteristics with what came before, and has a sense of place and understated appeal about it, but simply not as strong. It does fully conjure images of dirty cramped alleyways and rats scuttling away from tramps coming out of tents though, so it is with some relief that we divert into Coney Island Baby with its slightly off-key piano and Waits in disheveled crooner mode, a trick he pulls off wonderfully. This song is far more melodic than the prior two, but no less redolent of decay - like a seaside town that hasn't seen a visitor in a decade. There is a weariness and a melancholy, but also a refusal to simply lay down and die - opening up each day in case this is the one that the hordes return.
I really, really, like the imagery - I find it really satisfying in its vividness.
All the World is Green is an uplifting title, and my recollection is that the chorus is similarly positive, so I am surprised when the main musical theme that kicks it off is almost as dark as that on Misery is the River of the World. Its funny what we recall and what we forget, even about the same darn thing. I tell you now that I am remembering that I like this album. I really do not recall what prompted me to pick up this pair of discs and start collecting Waits, but I am so glad I did. He is amongst my most listened to if you believe LastFM - in the top 10 - and yet... it feels like I never really progressed past listening to this and to Alice.
Another Man's Vine is the first track that is not familiar when it begins, and it has a sleaziness to it, dispensing with some of the grime and decay for a salubrious tone, suggestive horns. Truly, is there anyone other than Waits who can conjure visualisations so strongly through a tune? At that point I am broken out of my thought pattern by realising I needed to adjust the track list, which was missing the horrificly tense Knife Chase for some reason. As if to counter the spiky danger of the chase, Lullaby arrives, just proving that Waits, despite the gravel in his larynx, can soothe as well as he can suggest. That said the song feels like a repeat of No-one Knows I'm Gone.
Starving in the Belly of a Whale is something else. Gruff, insistent and incessant, and that's before we hit the chorus where the repetition of the title is really magnetic. It is not a song that is comfortable to listen to but it is majestic as a tour de force - dragging you along behind it like a rider fallen from his panicked horse trapped in the stirrups and reins. As much as I am surprised that Tom Waits is quite so high up my list of most listened to artists (I suppose his prolific nature and sizable back catalog help him surface in shuffles), it is precisely this kind of grab-you-by-the-scruff type number that typifies his appeal.
The disc ends with a couple of short numbers - interludes really, though they are not referred to as such - squeezed in before the closer. A Good Man is Hard to Find is a lovely tune, and for once here Waits' distinctive vocal may not necessarily be the best to sit alongside the muted melody. It's not bad (after all, if you like Waits at all you would never call his voice bad; if you don't like him you'd be justified to say "the man can't sing!" at this juncture), but not quite as made for the composition somehow. The tone of this final track is upbeat and I think that is where the disconnect comes in. I find myself distracted for what feels like a second, and then jarred by the silence. The track has ended and so has the listen.
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