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Alice (Remastered)

by Tom Waits

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leonardmreidy
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leonardmreidy It reminds me of my cousin Tony Z and that harridan he married. I identify with Tony because he spent years building an international circus franchise only to have his hopes dashed by the spongiform brain disease that killed his best singing elephant. And the acrobats weren't laughing for long. Also, Tony had a tumor that was possessed by a demon. It was an asshole, a real piece of work. So imagine my surprise...
Yuda Goldbloom
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Yuda Goldbloom What I love about Tom Waits is that he serves the song first and foremost. What I love about this album is that I see myself in each song, only a more complete version of myself. Favorite track: Flowers Grave.
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1.
Alice 04:28
It's dreamy weather we're on You wave your crooked wand Along an icy pond With a frozen moon A murder of silhouette crows I saw... And the tears on my face And the skates on the pond they spell Alice I'll disappear in your name But you must wait for me Somewhere beneath the sea There's the wreck of a ship Your hair is like meadow grass On the tide And the raindrops on my window And the ice in my drink Baby, all that I can think of Is Alice Arithmetic Arithmetock I turn the hands back on the clock How does the ocean rock the boat How did the razor find my throat The only strings that hold me here Are tangled up around the pier And so a secret kiss Brings madness with the bliss And I will think of this When I'm dead in my grave Set me adrift and I'm lost over there But I must be insane To go skating on your name And by tracing it twice I fell through the ice Of Alice There's only Alice
2.
Everything you can think of is true Before the ocean was blue We were lost in a flood Run red with you blood Nigerian skeleton crew Everything you can think of is true The dish ran away with a spoon Dig deep in your heart for that little red glow We're decomposing as we go Everything you can think of is true And fishes make wishes on you We're fighting our way up dreamland's spine With red flamingos and expensive wine Everything you can think of is true The baby's asleep in your shoe Your teeth are buildings with yellow doors Your eyes are fish on a creamy shore
3.
Someday the silver moon and I Will go to Dreamland I will close my eyes And wake up there in Dreamland But tell me who will put flowers On a flower's grave Who will say a prayer Will I meet a China rose there In Dreamland Or does love lie bleeding In Dreamland Are these days gone forever and always If we are to die tonight Is there moonlight up ahead And if we are to die tonight Another rose will bloom For a faded rose Will I be the one that you save I love when it showers But no one puts flowers On a flower's grave As one rose dies another blooms It's always been that way I remember the showers But no one puts flowers On a flower's grave
4.
Hell above and heaven below All the trees are gone The rain makes such a lovely sound To those who are six feet under ground The leaves will bury every year And no one knows I'm gone Live me golden tell me dark Hide from Graveyard John But the moon is full here every night And I can bathe here in his light The leaves will bury every year And no one knows I'm gone
5.
6.
Poor Edward 03:42
Did you hear the news about Edward? On the back of his head He had another Face Was it a woman's face Or a young girl They said to remove it would kill him So poor Edward was doomed The Face could laugh and cry It was his Devil twin And at night she spoke to him Of things heard only in Hell They were impossible to separate Chained together for life Finally the bell tolled his doom He took a suite of rooms And hung himself and her From the balcony irons Some still believe he was freed from her But I knew her too well I say she drove him to suicide And took Poor Edward to Hell
7.
Well, my Mama didn't want me On the day I was born Born without a body I got nothin' but scorn But I always loved music All I had was my hands And I dreamed I'd be famous And I'd work at The Sands Tabletop Joe Tabletop Joe Everyone knows Tabletop Joe I had trouble with the pedals But I had a strong left hand And I could play Stravinsky On a baby grand I said I'm gonna join the circus 'cause that's where I belong And I went to Coney Island Singing this song Tabletop Joe Tabletop Joe Everyone knows Tabletop Joe And they gave me top billing In the Dreamland show I had my own orchestra Starring Tabletop Joe And the man without a body Proved everyone wrong I was rich and I was famous And I was where I belonged Singing Tabletop Joe Tabletop Joe Everyone knows Tabletop Joe
8.
Over here the ladies All want sweet perfume But there's never a rose And over there The roses are frightened to bloom So they never can grow And over here they need wool For weaving baby's new clothes But nobody has any wool And the sheep are all lost In the harbour And over here They want diamonds to wear But there aren't any here And over there, Everyone's hiding their tears But they're crying inside And the wall won't come down Til they're no longer afraid of themselves If you don't believe me, ask yourselves And I can come down To the harbour And then I will fill the ocean Back up with my tears I still have a couple more years And then I can come back To the harbour
9.
Hang me in a bottle like a cat Let the crows pick me clean but for my hat Where the wailing of a baby Meets the footsteps of the dead We're all mad here As the Devil sticks his flag into the mud Mrs. Carroll has run off with Reverend Judd Hell is such a lonely place And your big expensive face Will never last And you'll die with the rose still on your lips And in the time the heart-shaped bone That was your hips And all the worms they will climb The rugged ladder of your spine We're all mad here And my eyeballs roll this terrible terrain We're all inside a decomposing train And your eyes will die like fish And the shore of your face will turn to bone
10.
Last night I dreamed that I was dreaming of you and from a window across the lawn I watched you undress wearing a sunset of purple tightly woven around your hair that rose in strangled ebony curls moving in a yellow Bedroom light The air is wet with sound The faraway yelping of a wounded dog and the ground is drinking a slow faucet leak Your house is so soft and fading as it soaks the black summer heat a light goes on and a door opens and yellow cat runs out on the stream of hall light and into the yard a wooden cherry scent is faintly breathing the air I hear your champagne laugh you wear two lavender orchids one in your hair and one on your hip a string of yellow carnival lights comes on with the dusk circling the lake in a slowly dipping halo and I hear a Banjo tango and you dance into the shadow of a Black Poplar Tree I watch you as you disappear I watch you as you disappear I watch you as you disappear...
11.
Reeperbahn 04:02
Round the curve of The Parrot Bar A broken-down old movie star Hustling and Easterner Bringing out the beast in her A high dive in a swimming pool Filled with needles and with fools The memories are short but the tales are long Down there on the Reeperbahn They called her Rosie when she was a girl For her bright red cheeks and her strawberry curls When she would laugh the river would run She said she'd become a comedian Oh what a pity, oh what a shame When she said come calling, nobody came Now her bright red cheeks are painted on And she's laughing her head off in the Reeperbahn Now little Hans was always strange Wearing women's under things His father beat him but he wouldn't change He ran off with a man one day Now his lingerie is all the rage In the black on every page His father proudly calls his name Down there in the Reeperbahn Now if you've lost your inheritance And all you've 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 is gone but there's always the core The seeds will sprout up right through the floor Down there in the Reeperbahn Down there in the Reeperbahn
12.
You haven't looked at me that way in years You dreamed me up and left me here How long was I dreaming for What was it you wanted me for You haven't looked at me that way in years Your watch has stopped and the pond is clear Someone turn the lights back on I'll love you til all time is gone You haven't looked at me That way in years But I'm still here.
13.
They bought a round for the sailor And they heard his tale Of a world that was so far away And a song that we'd never heard A song of a little bird That fell in love with a whale He said: you cannot live in the ocean And she said to him: You never can live in the sky But the ocean is filled with tears And the sea turns into a mirror And there's a whale in the moon when it's clear And a bird on the tide Please don't cry Let me dry Your eyes So tell me that you will wait for me Hold me in your arms I promise we never will part I'll never sail back to the time But I'll always pretend you're mine Though I know that we both must part You can live in my heart
14.
Barcarolle 03:59
A cloud lets go of the moon Her ribbons are all out of tune She's skating on the ice in a glass And in the hands of a man That she kissed on a train The children have all gone into town To get candy and we are Alone in the house here And your eyes fall down on me And I belong only to you The water is filling my shoes In the wine of my heart there's a stone In a well made of bone I will bring to the pond And she's here in your pocket And curled up in a dollar And the chain from your watch Around her neck And I'll stay right here till it's time The girls all knit in the shade Before the baby is made The branches bend down to the ground Here to swing on And I'm lost in the blond summer grass And the train whistle blows And the carnival goes Till there's only the tickets and crows But the grass will all grow back And the branches Spell Alice And I belong to you
15.
Fawn 01:43

about

Alice is a haunted, moody chamber piece devoted to the obsessive, forbidden love of Charles Dodgson for Alice Liddell, for whom Alice in Wonderland was created. Piano, pump organ, cello, theremin and stroh violin are the main instruments employed for these melancholy and comic musings on death, longing, and the random meanness of life. Waits adapts the classic blues jazz balladry his early career in the eponymous song, “Alice” and the seasick pump organ and strings ode to the wall that separated East from West Germany, “Lost in the Harbor.”

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released May 7, 2002

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