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Rating: Tom Waits pierces your heart when you least expect it. "Alice" immediately lulls you into a noir sea that seems straight out of Simenon's novels or perhaps from some smoky American metropolis, maybe Tom's own Los Angeles, and then the journey continues relentlessly, paced by the puffs of the train in "Everything You Can Think", heading towards Singapore (echoes of the masterpiece "Rain Dogs") and off-key accordions. Then there's a splendid, melancholic stop around "Flower's Grave", a ballad of the saddest Tom, and "No One Knows I'm Gone", a song of gray remoteness and solitude.
You set off again with the Brechtian schizophrenia of "Kommienezuspadt", so harsh that it's almost annoying, leading to the imaginative masterpiece (read the lyrics please) of "Poor Edward", one of those songs that no one could have written except Tom. The list could go on, but it wouldn't capture the theatrical effectiveness, because these are songs for the theater, and of course, the musicality that Tom Waits knows how to express. Instead, the journey continues through the "blues" story of "Table Top Joe", the recital of "Watch her disappear" etcetera etcetera, up to "Fawn".
If the journey interests you, you just need to sit back and let yourself be lulled. The train is about to depart. . . . . . . .
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
03 Table Top Joe (03:15)
Well, my Mama didn't want me
On the day I was born
Born without a body
I got nothing but scorn
But I always loved music
All I had was my hands
And I dreamed I'd be famous
And I'd work at the Sands
Singing Tabletop Joe
Tabletop Joe
Now everyone knows
That I'm Tabletop Joe
I had trouble with the pedals
But I had a strong left hand
And I could play Stravinsky
On a baby grand
I said I'm gonna join the circus
Cause that's where I belong
So I went to Coney Island
I was singing this song
Tabletop Joe
Tabletop Joe
Now everyone knows
Tabletop Joe
They gave me top billing
In the Dreamland show
I had my own orchestra
Starring Tabletop Joe
And the man without a body
Proved everyone wrong
I was rich and I was famous
I was where I belonged
Tabletop Joe
Tabletop Joe
Now everyone knows
Tabletop Joe
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Other reviews
By fonopticon
Alice is a jewel absolutely worthy of his catalog.
I'm still here, a very brief sketch that in less than two minutes says everything that needs to be said with touching delicacy and grace.
