From 2002, this is Tom Waits' fourteenth album,
simultaneously released with Blood Money. For a third time, Waits made a studio version of the music that he used in a play, this is the second part of a trilogy involving
The Black Rider. Waits' album is absolutely beautiful, but quite scary. Alice, the title track, is a song of obsession and love that pulls you into it's murky waters and holds you under. Table Top Joe is a great song, very full of life, and it reminds one of
Straight Up To the Top. Reeperbahn is a sandpaper song with stories of various people, and their tragedies.
An excerpt from Alice's-
Reeperbahn
Now if you've lost your
inheritance
And all you're left is
common sense
And
you're not too picky about the crowd you keep
Or the mattress where you sleep
Behind every window, behind every door
The apple's gone but there's always the core
The seeds will sprout up right through the floor
Down there in the Reeperbahn