The second half of Tom Waits' 2002 simultaneous release with
Alice, his fifteenth album, and it's even got magical abilities. Kind of. This album is a studio version of
music from Waits' version of the play Woyzcec. It is a chilling set of songs, but it is an amazing peek into Waits' mind. Track five, God's Away On Business, is a
happy seeming tune, disguising a horrific tale of the sinking ship we are all on.
An excerpt from
Blood Money's-
Misery Is the River of the World
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