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.

    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.

    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.

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.