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Tom Waits: Blood Money

 A l b u m   D e t a i l s


Label: Anti Inc.
Released: 2002.05.07
Time:
 42:09
Category: Progressive Rock
Producer(s): Tom Waits, Kathleen Brennan
Rating: *********. (9/10)
Media type: CD
Web address: www.anti.com
Appears with:
Purchase date: 2002.05.14
Price in €: 13,99



 S o n g s ,   T r a c k s


[1] Misery Is the River of the World (K.Brennan/T.Waits) - 4:25
[2] Everything Goes to Hell (K.Brennan/T.Waits) - 3:45
[3] Coney Island Baby (K.Brennan/T.Waits) - 4:02
[4] All the World Is Green (K.Brennan/T.Waits) - 4:36
[5] God's Away on Business (K.Brennan/T.Waits) - 2:59
[6] Another Man's Vine (K.Brennan/T.Waits) - 2:28
[7] Knife Chase [instrumental] (K.Brennan/T.Waits) - 2:26
[8] Lullaby (K.Brennan/T.Waits) - 2:09
[9] Starving in the Belly of a Whale (K.Brennan/T.Waits) - 3:41
[10] The Part You Throw Away (K.Brennan/T.Waits) - 4:22
[11] Woe (K.Brennan/T.Waits) - 1:20
[12] Calliope [instrumental] (K.Brennan/T.Waits) - 1:59
[13] A Good Man Is Hard to Find (K.Brennan/T.Waits) - 3:57

 A r t i s t s ,   P e r s o n n e l


TOM WAITS - Acoustic & Electric Guitar, Piano, Calliope, Vocals, Producer, Chamberlain, Pump Organ, Toy Piano, Producer

CHARLIE MUSSELWHITE - Harmonica
STEWART COPELAND - Drums, Log Drums
MATTHEW BRUBECK - Bass, Cello
LARRY TAYLOR - Acoustic & Electric Guitar, Bass
MYLES BOISEN - Guitar
BENT CLAUSEN - Bass Drums, Marimba
JOE GORE - Electric Guitar
MULE PATTERSON - Performer
NICK PHELPS - Trumpet
GINO ROBAIR - Bongos, Gong, Marimba, Bells, Timpani, Floor Tom
ALLEN SUDDUTH - Engineer
DAN PLONSEY - Clarinet
ANDREW BORGER - Marimba
COLIN STETSON - Clarinet, Bass Clarinet, Baritone Horn, Alto, Baritone & Tenor Saxophone

KATHLEEN BRENNAN - Producer
JEFF SLOAN - Engineer, Production Coordination
OZ FRITZ - Engineer, Mixing
JACQUIRE KING - Engineer
GAVIN LURSSEN - Mastering
HEATHER FREMLING - Balance Engineer
S. "Husky" HOSKULDS - Mixing
WINNI WINTERMEYER - Design
JEFF ABARTA - Art Direction, A&R
RICHARD FISHER - Studio Support

 C o m m e n t s ,   N o t e s


2002 CD Anti 86629
2002 LP Epitaph 86629



Blood Money is up there with Waits's best albums from the mid-'80s, veering as it does from sexy insomniac circus music to gorgeously heart-tugging lullabies to woozy zigzag bluesy romps to what can only be described as Oscar the Grouch singing out of tune on top of the soundtrack to an old French film. Blood Money's 13 songs were cowritten by Tom Waits and longtime collaborator and wife Kathleen Brennan for a Robert Wilson production of Georg Büchner's unfinished, protomodernist 1837 play, Woyzeck, about a Kafkaesque German soldier who goes crazy after doing medical experiments for money and kills his girlfriend after witnessing a perceived infidelity. The album's worldview is, necessarily, bleak. The lyrics are hilariously misanthropic, occasionally hallucinatory, and ring with the truth of Tin Pan Alley clichés turned inside out. "Coney Island Baby," in particular, is a grand statement, with Waits delicately croaking the lines "She's a rose, she's the pearl / She's the spin on my world / All the stars make their wishes on her eyes." The album's manifesto, however, is to be found in the title tune, as Waits spits out the words "If there's one thing you can say about mankind / There's nothing kind about man / You can drive out nature with a pitch fork / But it always comes roaring back again." Released at the same time as the lyrical, lovely Alice, the ragged and rhythmic Blood Money marks the return of one of our most gifted meta-singer-songwriters to the top of his game.

Mike McGonigal, Amazon.com



Based on director Robert Wilson's horrific tale of a 19th century Prussian soldier subjected to medical experiments after being driven insane by his cheating woman, Tom Waits' Blood Money is-contrarily--the funniest Waits album since his late 1970s drunken cabaret period. The musical landscape is painted by alternately stomping or swaying jazz rhythms and melodies, pizzicato strings, sexy mutant Latin guitars, wailing harmonicas, lyrical clarinets and drunken brass, while Waits utilises every voice--from poisoned croon to martial rant--that he's ever stumbled upon, as his metaphors and killing jokes turn horror into bleak hilarity.

Ignore those who say that Blood Money is the evil, inaccessible twin of the concurrently-released Alice--they perhaps don't appreciate the desire for redemption and the love of humanity that lies behind the ironies of all great black comedy. Blood Money is a new musical and poetic peak, and the greatest Tom Waits album yet.

Garry Mulholland, Amazon.co.uk



Blood Money gehört in die Kategorie der besten Alben von Tom Waits, die damals Mitte der 80er-Jahre erschienen. Es bewegt sich von einer sexy wirkenden Zirkusmusik über wunderschöne, rührende Kinderlieder und im Zickzack taumelnde bluesige Romps bis hin zu dem, was klingt, als ob Oscar aus der Sesamstraße mit einer völlig falschen Melodie den Soundtrack eines alten französischen Films übertönt. Die 13 Songs von Blood Money wurden gemeinsam von Tom Waits und seiner langjährigen Mitarbeiterin und Ehefrau Kathleen Brennan für eine Robert-Wilson-Produktion von Georg Büchners 1837 entstandenem, unvollendetem Theaterstück Woyzeck geschrieben. Das bereits auf die Moderne verweisende Stück handelt von einem "kafkaesken" deutschen Soldaten, der verrückt wird, nachdem er gegen Bezahlung medizinische Experimente über sich ergehen lässt und seine Freundin umbringt, nachdem er zum Zeugen eines vermeintlichen Vertrauensbruches wird.

Die Weltanschauung dieses Albums ist entsprechend düster. Die Texte sind heiter-pessimistisch, vermitteln den Eindruck von Halluzinationen, und hier wird die Aussage von Klischeevorstellungen des Boulevards auf den Kopf gestellt. Das Motto dieses Albums ist jedoch in der Titelmelodie zu finden, wo eine Passage übersetzt in etwa lautet: "Etwas steht fest bei dem Menschengeschlecht/Es ist schlecht/Treib die Natur mit der Mistgabel aus/Sie kommt mit Gebrüll unweigerlich zurück". Blood Money erschien gleichzeitig mit dem lyrisch-lieblichen Alice. Es markiert mit seiner widerborstigen Art und seinem rhythmischen Charakter die Rückkehr eines unserer begabtesten Sänger und Songschreiber zurück an die Spitze seiner Zunft.

Mike McGonigal, Amazon.de



Musikalische Überväter melden sich mit neuem Album zurück - Folge 234. Ich bin versucht, diese Rezension von vornherein auf einen Satz einzudampfen: Tom Waits ist Tom Waits, und wer ihn mag, wird auch diese Alben kaufen. Das gilt für Waits-Fans mehr als für andere, fühlen sie sich doch ob des Meisters Verschrobenheit als verschworene Gemeinde. Und daher bedeutet Waits-Fan sein seit längerer Zeit auch, sich abzusetzen von seiner Vereinnahmung durch Gymnasial-MusiklehrerInnen auf der einen und Christoph Schlingensief (der den Waits-Song "In The Colosseum" als plakativen Opener für sein letztes Theaterstück "Rosebud" benutzte) auf der anderen Seite.

Diese Rückmeldung aber ist eine besondere (und nicht nur, weil sie eine doppelte ist): Beide Alben sind Remakes von Songs, die Waits ursprünglich für Theaterprojekte geschrieben hatte. "Blood Money" geht auf Georg Büchners "Woyzeck", "Alice" auf Lewis Carrolls Roman "Alice In Wonderland" zurück. Angesichts dieser verspäteten Veröffentlichung drängt sich unweigerlich die Frage auf: Muss Waits jetzt schon auf alte Projekte zurückgreifen? Fällt ihm nichts mehr ein? Wie dem auch sei, herausgekommen sind zwei sehr unterschiedliche Platten. "Blood Money" ist Waits as usual, eher ein Schritt zurück zu Klassikern wie "Swordfishtrombones" und "Rain Dogs", aber nicht die erwartete Fortsetzung des auf "Mule Variations" eingeschlagenen Wegs. Hier lassen sich kaum auf Anhieb (wieder-)erkennbare zukünftige Waits-Klassiker ausmachen, vielleicht mit Ausnahme der "Tracks The Part You Throw Away" und "Woe". Dafür gibt es aber mit "Calliope" ein ultra-schräges Instrumental. Am Ende lässt Waits mit "A Good Man" den schon lange in ihm vermuteten Louis Armstrong raushängen, komplett mit quäkiger Trompete. Trotzdem schafft er es nicht, den großen Songs der letzten beiden Alben wie "In The Colosseum", "Filipino Box Spring Hog" oder "What's He Building In There?" auf dem Woyzeck-Verschnitt ebenso geniale Stücke entgegenzusetzen. Ein Album für Fans eher. Ein ganz anderer Stapel Karten ist dagegen die Aufnahme der Tracks, die Waits 1992 für "Alice" geschrieben hat. Nachdem die Demos zu dem Projekt

seit Jahren als Bootleg zirkulierten, hat er sich nun aufgerafft, diese in neue akustische Gewänder zu kleiden. Dass er die Songs so lange ruhen ließ, hat ihnen offensichtlich gut getan. Hier tummeln sich wunderbar düster-resignierte Songs wie der Titeltrack, Herzschmerz-Balladen à la "Time" ("Flowers Grave", "Barcarolle") und durchgedrehtester Waits-stuff wie der Song "Kommienezuspadt", den er zu Schrottplatz-Perkussion in unverständlichstem Deutsch in ein uralt-Mikro krächzt. Und "Poor Edward" ist ein extrem schwermütiger Song, wie er so noch nie von ihm zu hören war. "Alice" ist das schönste Waits-Album, das ich hören durfte, seit... ja, seit wann denn? Seit "Rain Dogs"? Seit dem "One From The Heart"-Soundtrack? Oder seit "Small Change"? Möglicherweise ist es einfach das schönste Waits-Album, das ich je gehört habe.

RALF BEI DER KELLEN - Intro



Tom Waits has two new albums out, both consisting of music he and his wife, Kathleen Brennan, wrote for Robert Wilson stage productions. Alice is for Lewis Carroll's fantastical Alice in Wonderland; Blood Money is for Georg Büchner's protean 1836 play Woyzeck, which anticipated existentialism, social realism, and expressionism (and served as the basis for Alban Berg's milestone opera Wozzeck).

As a connoisseur of the seamy underbelly of society and musical advocate of life's colorful losers, Waits is ideally suited to give voice to the impoverished soldier Woyzeck. The inhuman Doctor uses Woyzeck as an experimental subject. The captain of the military company to which Woyzeck belongs makes him an object of moral derision. Woyzeck's girlfriend, Marie, takes his money but is romantically faithless. Overwhelmed by his life, the inarticulate Woyzeck murders Marie and then drowns, possibly intentionally.

The songs mostly display characters' moods, as on Woyzeck's ode to Marie, "All the World Is Green," or general philosophies, such as "Everything Goes to Hell" and "God's Away on Business." Unlike most Waits albums, the plot (though it seems that the songs are not presented in the sequence of events) precludes an optimistic ending. The last verse heard, presumably Marie's words, states in alienation and resignation, "A good man is hard to find / Only strangers sleep in my bed / My favorite words are good-bye / And my favorite color is red."

The musical style Waits perfected over the past two decades complements the story well. When the emphasis is on horns, accordion, marimba, and Waits' keyboards (piano, of course, but also pump organ, toy piano, calliope, and the proto-synthesizer known as a Chamberlain), the effect recalls the eccentric jazziness of Kurt Weill's early work -- and lyrics such as "If there's one thing you can say / About Mankind / There's nothing kind about man" from "Misery Is the River of the World" have the flavor of Weill's collaborator Bertoldt Brecht. When Waits plays guitar, the sound is more bluesy, sometimes including Charlie Musselwhite on harmonica. The effect of the combination of all these elements is stunning and profound, and ranks among Waits' finest albums, albeit his most depressing by a long shot.

Steve Holtje - May 6, 2002
CDNOW Senior Editor
Copyright © 1994-2002 CDnow Online, Inc. All rights reserved.



Tom Waits just can't lay an egg, but is that because he's attained a level of creative impunity? Is anything he creates an automatic classic simply because it's a product of his sublimely bent mass of gray matter? God damn right - even if it's not always an heroic improvement. And he must know that. Why else would he follow up a Grammy-winning album (1999's Mule Variations) with two albums? If you think about it, it's perfectly logical and the only way to go. Not that quantity itself rules; it's the trick of turning out a deuce of distinguished discs to prove a point: that Tom Waits is just Tom Waits doing Tom Waits. The Grammy might as well have been awarded for his entire body of work, 'cause he's not exactly trolling undiscovered country; he's just putting out consistently good collections of songs. Both the brooding, jazzy Alice and the subdued LSD hootenanny Blood Money are as good as Mule and any other item in Waits' discography. The appeal lies in the eclectic instrumentation, stark, cinematic imagery and scratchy, Louis Armstrong-in-The Exorcist crooning, which create an effect of being pulled through a cool, endless corridor walled in black-and-white celluloid. And while it's nothing groundbreaking, it's a hell of a ride. God. Damn. Right.

Randy Harward: CMJ New Music Report Issue: 763 - May 20, 2002
© 1978-2002 College Media, Inc., Inc. All Rights Reserved.



For a guy who operates in self-imposed exile from this business we call show -- going an eternity between albums, even longer between tours -- Tom Waits knows how to make an entrance. In the first line of "Poor Edward," a tall tale of satanic possession and suicide on Alice, one of his two new records, Waits devours the victim's name with Shakespearean relish, stretching it out in a malignant growl, like a burned-out coroner showing you the dead body with a tired sweep of his arm. Waits' ravaged voice surrendered all pretensions to melody ages ago; his throat is now pure theater, a weapon of pictorial emphasis and raw honesty.

Appropriately, Alice and Blood Money feature songs written by Waits and his wife, Kathleen Brennan, for a pair of stage collaborations with dramatist Robert Wilson: 1992's Alice, based on the sexual obsessions of the Victorian author Lewis Carroll, and 2000's Woyzeck, adapted from the nineteenth-century German play about a soldier driven to lunacy and murder. This is fertile darkness for Waits, who excels at putting a human face on the bizarre and finding redemptive cheer in flophouse woe. Except for the bodiless piano-playing hands in Alice's "Table Top Joe," Waits keeps the outright freaks to a minimum. Instead, he turns his scarred baritone and gallows wit to straight talk on deep shit.

Blood Money is especially grim, a bitter suite about greed and moral bankruptcy. "If there is one thing you can say/About mankind/There's nothing kind about man," Waits snaps in the bleak circus hop, "Misery Is the River of the World." In the rattling jig "God's Away on Business," the dancing is all done on suckers' graves. Alice is just as macabre in its details of destructive lust. But there are flickers of hope, too, such as "Fish and Bird," a soft waltz about a love that defies reason and natural order, sung by Waits in an old salt's croon.

Written as theatrical scores, these records bloom on their own. They are also testaments to Waits' gift for making tangible magic from odd clatter: dusky strings, mooing horns, ancient keyboards. The atmospheres around his voice are so vivid you feel like you're there with him in the diesel-scented fog of Alice's "Lost in the Harbour," or burning both your asses on the fire and brimstone all over Blood Money. "Everything you think of is true," Waits declares on Alice in that 3-D cough. For him, none of this is mere show.

DAVID FRICKE - RS 896 May 23, 2002
© Copyright 2002 RollingStone.com
 

 L y r i c s


MISERY IS THE RIVER OF THE WORLD

The higher that the monkey can climb
The more he shows his tail
Call no man happy till he dies
There's no milk at the bottom of the pail

God builds a church
The devil builds a chapel
Like the thistles that are growing
Round the trunk of a tree
All the good in the world
You can put inside a thimble
And still have room for you and me

If there's one thing you can say about Mankind
There's nothing kind about man
You can drive out nature with a pitch fork
But it always comes roaring back again

Misery's the river of the world
Misery's the river of the world
Misery's the river of the world

The higher that the monkey can climb
The more he shows his tail
Call no man happy till he dies
There's no milk at the bottom of the pail

?
The devil knows the bible like the back of his hand
All the good in the world
You can put inside a thimble
And still have room for you and me

If there's one thing you can say about Mankind
There's nothing kind about man
You can drive out nature with a pitch fork
But it always comes roaring back again

For want of a bird
The sky was lost
For want of a nail
A shoe was lost
For want of a life
A knife was lost
For want of a toy
A child was lost

And misery's the river of the world
Misery's the river of the world
Everybody row, everybody row
Misery's the river of the world
Misery's the river of the world
Misery's the river of the world
Everybody row, everybody row
Everybody row, everybody row
Misery's the river of the world
Misery's the river of the world
Everybody row, everybody row
Everybody row, everybody row
Everybody row
Misery's the river of the world
Misery's the river of the world
Misery's the river of the world
Everybody row, everybody row
Everybody row 


EVERYTHING GOES TO HELL

Why be sweet, why be careful, why be kind?
A man has only one thing on his mind
Why ask politely, why go lightly, why say please?
They only want to get you on your knees
There's a few things that I never could believe

A woman when she weeps
A merchant when he swears
A thief who says he'll pay
A lawyer when he cares
A snake when he is sleeping
A drunkard when he prays
I don't believe you go to heaven when you're good
Everything goes to hell, anyway

Laissez-faire mi amour, ce la vie
Shall I return to shore or swim back out to sea?
The world don't care what a sailor does in town
It's all hanging in the windows by the pound
I don't believe you go to heaven when you're good
Everything goes to hell, anyway

I only want to hear you purr and to hear you moan
You have another man who brings the money home
I don't want dishes in the sink
Don't tell me what you feel or what you think
There's a few things I never could believe

A woman when she weeps
A merchant when he swears
A thief who says he'll pay
A lawyer when he cares
A snake when he is sleeping
A drunkard when he prays
I don't believe you go to heaven when you're good
Everything goes to hell, anyway

Everything goes to hell, anyway
Oh, everything goes to hell, anyway 


CONEY ISLAND BABY

Every night she comes
To take me out to dreamland
When I'm with her
I'm the richest man in the town
She's a rose, she's a pearl
She the spin on my world
All the stars make their wishes on her eyes

She's my Coney Island Baby
She's my Coney Island Girl

She's a princess in a red dress
She's the moon in the mist to me

She's my Coney Island Baby
She's my Coney Island Girl

Every night she comes
To take me out to dreamland
When I'm with her
I'm the richest man in the town
She's a rose, she's a pearl
She the spin on my world
All the stars make their wishes on her eyes

She's my Coney Island Baby
She's my Coney Island Girl

She's a princess in a red dress
She's the moon in the mist to me

She's my Coney Island Baby
She's my Coney Island Girl
She's my Coney Island Baby
She's my Coney Island Girl 


ALL THE WORLD IS GREEN

I fell into the ocean
When you became my wife
I risked it all against the sea
To have a better life
Marie you are the wild blue sky
Men do foolish things
You turn kings into beggars
And beggars into kings

Pretend that you owe me nothing
And all the world is green
We can bring back the old days again
When all the world is green

The face forgives the mirror
The worm forgives the plow
The questions begs the answer
Can you forgive me somehow?
Maybe when our story's over
We'll go where it's always spring
The band is playing our song again
And all the world is green

Pretend that you owe me nothing
And all the world is green
Can we bring back the old days again?
And all the world is green

The moon is yellow silver
On the things that summer brings
It's a love you'd kill for
And all the world is green
He's balancing a diamond
On a blade of grass
The dew will settle on our graves
When all the world is green

Pretend that you owe me nothing
And all the world is green
We can bring back the old days again
When all the world is green

He's balancing a diamond
On a blade of grass
The dew will settle on our graves
When all the world is green 


GOD'S AWAY ON BUSINESS

I'd sell your heart to the junkman baby
For a buck, for a buck
If you're looking for someone
To pull you out of that ditch
You're out of luck, out of luck 


ANOTHER MAN'S VINE

Bougainvillea's bloom and wind
Be careful mind the strangle vines
The roses climbing through the blind
Cause the sun is on the other side
The bees will find their honey
The sweetest everytime
Around a red rose
I see a red rose
Red rose blooming on another man's vine

Golden Willies gone to war
He left his young wife on the shore
Will she be steadfast everyday?
While Golden Willie is far away
Along the way her letters end
She never reads what Willie sends

I see a red rose
I smell a red rose
A red rose blooming on another man's vine 


KNIFE CHASE

Instrumental


LULLABY

Sun is red, moon is cracked
Daddy's never coming back
Nothing's ever yours to keep
Close your eyes, go to sleep
If I die before you wake
Don't you cry, don't you weep

Nothing's ever as it seems
Climb the ladder to your dreams
And if I die before you wake
Don't you cry, don't you weep
Nothing's ever yours to keep
close your eyes, go to sleep 


STARVING IN THE BELLY OF A WHALE

Life is whittled
Life's a riddle
Man's a fiddle that life plays on
When the day breaks and the earth quakes
Life's a mistake all day long
Tell me, who gives a good goddamn
You'll never get out alive
Don't go dreaming 


THE PART YOU THROW AWAY

That is the part you throw away
I want that beggars ass, a winning horse
The tidy Mexican


WOE

The ribbon round your neck
Against your skin it's as pale as bone
It is my favorite thing you've worn
The band is playing our song
And we won't go home 'til morn 


CALLIOPE

Instrumental


A GOOD MAN IS HARD TO FIND

Well I always play Russian Roulette in my head
Seventeen black, Oh twenty-nine red
How far from the gutter? How far from the pew?
I'll always remember to forget about you

A good man is hard to find
Only strangers sleep in my bed
And my favorite words are goodbye
And my favorite color is red

A long dead soldier looks out from the frame
No one remembers his war, no one remembers his name
Go out to the meadow, scare off all the crows
It does nothing but rain here, nothing will grow

A good man is hard to find
Only strangers sleep in my bed
And my favorite words are goodbye
And my favorite color is red
My favorite color is red
My favorite color is red

 M P 3   S a m p l e s


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