Tom Waits is a one of a kind singer with amazing songs and an amazing voice. His distinctive style must be placed in a genre of it's own...Bravo, Bravo.

    Tom Waits, with his distinctive voice and penchant for cynical and abrasive lyrics, is one of my favorite musicians of all time. I just watched the movie"Smartest guy in the room" and was not really shocked to see the corporate greed of ENRON was from the top down. This song could have been written by "Kenny Boy" or any one of his little henchmen. The lyrics hit home and make a perfect soundtrack for this movie.

    So I'm watching the DVD 'The Smartest Guy's In The Room'. Halfway through I fall asleep. I am literally jolted awake by the song playing while the final credits are rolling. I play the song one more time. Then I start the DVD over, from the begining, so as to get the full affect of the song.

    Jesus well i guess that martyr ain't here for this song. I've never heard a tom waits song before, but damn I'm a 16 year old with a very diverse interest when it comes to music. I mean the video his lyrics the guy's got it. i think and i'm not trying to be childish nor immature when i say this but i felt like i was listening to the wicked monkeys in the wizard of oz when i heard this song. This has inspired me to write a few songs of my own. It's great, what else is there to say?

    This song was a very fitting choice to play while the credits roll on the movie "Smartest Guys in the Room." Yes, Enron had thieves in charge and nobody noticed until it was much too late. Great commentary on the state of business in the "deregulated" U.S.A.

    Wow -- I first heard this as part of the soundtrack of the Enron documentary "The Smartest Guys In The Room." You can't really call this a "song" -- nothing like singing is involved. But it is an extraordinary performance of declamation! Tom Waits, with his raspy basso profundissimo, delivers a strikingly Brecht/Weill'ian performance of a number that belongs in the middle of the Threepenny Opera. This is a great number.

    Hahahaha this guy can take such a grave situation and put it in a song that somehow makes me smile. I love it!!!!

    I confess I've been a little abstracted from Tom Waits's works ever since he recorded the Black Rider, which may be some masterpiece but just a little too much for me. But this song and this video totally drew my attention from the very first time I listened/watched. The music, the voice (I always wondered if this is really Tom Waits's voice) and the eerie ambiance of the video are hardly separable and combine in perfection to bring us an image of a world seemingly abandoned by God. Who do we have in power? Killers, thieves and lawyers. If this song pleases you as much as it pleases me and if it makes you think, then I guess Tom Waits is still a very valuable character in the music scene.

    First heard the song a few days ago, and immediately felt drawn to it. I'm not sure what exactly it was, although I'm fairly sure it wasn't the lyrics (since I couldn't make out exactly what he was saying) But the darker mood to the song and the catchy victrola-esque background music made me love it. And now that I know the words...well, you can probably imagine!

    This song is a fantastic piece of work. It's dark, meloncholy, and sometimes very strange lyrics are accompanied perfectly by the deeply black track behind, giving an extrordinarily eerie feel to this song. Gives me goosebumps every time, I hope it'll do the same for you.

    I completely disagree with Ginny. Agreed the song is a bit disturbing, and I can't really say anything about the video since I haven't seen it, but to say Tom Waits isn't trying to change the scary place the world has become isn't quite right. Many people don't realize just what a terribly place the world can be and this song tries to point it out to them. After all, change can't start until people recognize a problem. And I realize it's just a song and doesn't seem like it could change much, but sometimes songs carry alot more weight than people think.

    This song is great! The world sucks for a lots of people and is getting worse very rapidly, AND IT IS because we have left killers, thieves and lawyers in charge. Its time for people to wake up, stop watching Fraser and Star Trek, and notice this! The more artists and citizens that stop to look to see and then scream the truth as loudly and colourfully as possible, the more others may hear. And only when LOTS of people start to take notice can even the possibility arise that things will change (and even then, its a stretch).

    Well... this song is certainly saying something. There are some definite references to the corruptions of society and the speaker is either corrupt or sarcastically drawing attention to the evils. There are some obvious reaches for shocking imagery... be it for album sales or to make people feel, I don't know. And quite frankly, I don't care. The song and video are rather distrubing. I get the message. the world's a scary place. And this Tom Waits fellow isn't trying to change that.

    I heartily agree with Inomi when he writes that the song is fantastic. However, he says that the the song combines 'irrelative elements', which I don't think is true at all. Actually, the song appears to be a tightly structured dramatic monologue in which Waits takes on the persona of man who has thrown morality aside. In my opinion, this album boasts some of Wait's finest lyrical work. I still smile every time his persona envisions goodness as a mousetrap ('It's a deal! It's a deal!')

    This song is fantastic! I mean alright, Tom Waits is unconventional anyhow, but this is one the ingeniously made songs, combining totally irrelative elements and containing three different parts: One where God's away on business is being sung by screaming voices, then there's some talking sounding like german (Woyzeck) and finally some very high pitched singing combined again with softer Tom Waits singing. AAAAwwwwssooooommmeeee :-)