Watch Her Disappear - Absolutely haunting. I heard it once and couldn't get it out of my head. No other person could do those incredible lyrics the way Waits did them, and no other lyrics have ever told such a story to me. This is my new favorite song.

    Everything You Can Think - This song is awesome, Tom combines lyrical irony with humor and craziness all with a catchy beat.

    Poor Edward - Genuinely creepy song.

    No One Knows I'm Gone - I cry almost every time I hear this song and want 2 thank Tom.

    Reeperbahn - Not 100%, but i think i know the Hans he is refering to.

    Poor Edward - The most original gothic novel I never read.

    Poor Edward - Brilliant, captivating, entrancing....the instrumental passage sounds like Brahms, with a stroh violin.

    My 10-year-old daughter lives in Chattanooga, TN and every other weekend I pick her up and bring her to my home in Knoxville. A couple of weeks ago, late in the night, we were driving down I-75 and Savannah had fallen asleep. I was listening to _Alice_; Table Top Joe was playing and Savannah suddenly woke up. Barely awake she began laughing. I asked her what was funny and she replied, "I was born without a body." Within seconds she was back asleep and breathing heavily. Her favorite song is probably Kommienzuspadt.

    Couple of years ago, I wrote a psychosocial research project about Alice with my little attitude of sadness and loneliness. It is so easy to forgotten after it finished. Thanks Tom,his new song of "Alice" brought me back to rethink about my research project. This song is absolutely meaningful and abstract(?). As a counterpart of his post songs, the style hasn't change but Tom, a sophisticated inquirer, did switch his position from a life viewer to an interactor... well, while "they" spelled Alice, maybe Tom made us to know that "they" also spelled us... Hopefully, Tom will give us his prescription in his next album.

    Barcarole (or barcarolle as you wish) is a Venetian boat song usually in 6/8 or 12/8 which allows the composer to make that alteration of strong and weak beat sugesting a rowing rhythm. In this case, it used to imitate the sound of a moving train in which the main character meets the young girl. Of course, Venice - the home town of Barcarole, simbolize the feeling of the man who had been kissed on the train. And still "the grass will all grow back again". In my opinion - the best of the 2 albums, and one of his finest.

    Komminenezuspadt - Have only just listened to Alice album and never realised the lyrics were pretend German - sounds so authentic!!! A brilliant track with a great beat - love it!

    Fish And Bird - This song is so ..:( .....poor little bird....poor big whale...it almost made me wanna cry when i heard it 4 the first time . Tom's voice is so sad sometimes.

    Although the two albums are separate entities, 'Alice' and 'Blood Money' compliment each other perfectly.
Alice is a lush, jazz-influenced trip through the story of Alice In Wonderland through the eyes of its author, Lewis Carroll. It is said that Carroll suffered because of his love for Alice (the girl on which he based his stories) and was made to realise that a romance would be impossible. Waits has really connected with this concept, a sense of misery and heartache really showing through on this album. Originally written in 1992 for the stage show of the same name, 'Alice' has been tidied up and finally given a release.
Opening with the serene title track, the album slowly descends into levels of curiosity including a slant towards the insane on tracks such as "We're All Mad Here" and "Kommienezuspadt", on which Waits gives it his all with his familiar rasping, wheezing voice. The instrumentation is often jarring and acoustic, but the formula works best with Waits' voice to create sounds that can only be described as being from the lungs of Hell!
An interesting bar-room skit, "Table Top Joe" is the story of a musician born with no body- only Waits could possibly have created such a song and still have it sound jaunty and full of optimism! The closing track ("Fawn") is a tender instrumental, performed on a violin with a tear-jerking melody that will haunt even the most toughened of listeners for hours after the record is over.
I can seriously recommend these albums to anybody- not just seasoned Waits fans. With so many different styles of music in such a short space of time, these albums are worthy of anybody's collection! Although many will dispute that these are Waits' best albums (because of their play-based nature), "Alice" and "Blood Money" are his best works in years, and should not be avoided.

    What an incredible opening tune. "Alice" rivals any other song on any other Tom Waits album (including my absolute favorite Swordfishtrombones but Blood Money is just as great). The smokey sax and brushes give it a slick faux-jazz sound that completes the "picture" of Tom Waits. Not in a nutshell, of course, every Tom Waits song holds different elements together, somtimes just enough to hold on to the listener and other times let them fall into another mood or sense of awareness. No one, in my opinion, can take an active listener to other places with music like Tom Waits. "Alice" makes one feel the chill and the loneliness of a man who's whole sense of being, as short is it may be, revolves around this alice we know little about. With lyrics such as "How did the razor find my throat?" and "...a secret kiss brings madness with the bliss", Waits makes a true listener feel the despair and self-centeredness of a man that seemingly dosen't want to go on. Other songs such as "Singapore" or "Shore Leave", to name just a couple, also paint vivid pictures. My advice to anyone who wants to listen to a little more of Tom Waits should try and get their hands on some of his more bizzare recordings(post Blue Valentine, but his earlier releases are just as good). If you can truly listen and enjoy any one of them, welcome to the club.

    The man never fails to capture my full undivided attention with his soulful and heartfelt lyrics and haunting melodies. Tom Waits is never afraid to go anywhere with the sound of his songs. In his exploration of the world of "Alice" he lets the music flow and ebb with a sound that would be right at home on the other side of the lookingglass. I especially liked the song "Poor Edward". Every song tells a story and the story is not always one that is easy to hear, as in his classic "Fall of Troy". Tom Waits and his wife make beautiful noise together and I hope they keep it up. I wish that more film makers that like to work with a real challenge would work to shoot more videos of his music.

    Am I the only one that thinks that the song "Alice" is a monumental recording that incorporates so many former musical styles and almost puts a definitive close to the era of jazz-faux-jazz music? The most incredible song ever written, for sure, so utterly unexpected.

    Kommienezuspadt - This song is brilliant whole album along with blood money is another tom waits masterpiece!!!!

    "Alice" is a risk. It is one of Wilsons lesser liked pieces. The script was inconsistent, though the visuals were lovely. To make another album based on a Wilson play is a tough call. The demos reveal alot of the percussion that one can find on the 'Black Rider' polished album, but lacking, in a word, soul.
    The finished album of "Alice" is touchingly, achingly human; and consistant, and up to par with my favourites, 'Heart of Saturday Night' and 'Rain Dogs.' The idea of a theme album is a tricky one. There are those that love, say, Lou Reed's 'Berlin', and those who can't bear the very nature of it.
    "Alice," to me, is one long, haunting song of a love that cannot be. The result is madness, loss, poetry, despair, and yes, jazz. The song of 'Fish and Bird' is just one of the many metaphors that Waits uses. The humor of the song makes one vulnerable to the deeper tragedy of an impossible love, in this case, the love that Lewis Carrol had for Alice.
    One of the fascintating elements, is that the idea of pedophelia is never brought up, never mentioned. There is no guilt here, that a man could fall in love with such a young girl, but rather, the inability to come to grips with a forbidden love. That is the very heart of poetry itself.

    Watch Her Disappear - I think that this is one of his most beautifully lyrical songs in recent years. It is very successful at painting a picture of someone admiring a beautiful woman from afar. The man is a genius, and he has proven it yet again.

Oh Tom.
    I spent the good hour downloading the preview mp3 of "Alice" from epitaph holding my breath. I had been speaking to a friend on how excited I was to hear the new Alice album. I was especially anxious to hear "There's only Alice" redone and polished. I was hoping to hear maybe a little more of the lost, dejected and lonely tarantella/waltz he had going on. The original version painted a very sad man on a winters day. There was a "last will and testament" atmosphere to the song, spelled out almost absent-mindedly on an old church piano. Of any of the originals that could make me almost weep, that was it.
    And I was hoping he would add a few brushstrokes to the masterpiece and pronounce it good...but that was not to be.
    He went jazz with it.
    And not only did he go jazz with it...he sings it like a bad cover tune.
    Gone is the sad man on a winters day. Gone is the feeling of despair. Jazz club man. Feel that sax? See the haze of smoke? See that old cat doing his impression of someone with feeling?
    The lost madness of the tune, skating in circles, maybe drinking brandy in the confessional by himself, maybe battling dark thoughts of forbidden love that were captured quite clearly by the music in the original but, sadly, are lost in the passages of the new version. Here's hoping he hasn't botched all of it.