Note: this is an old review that I wrote 2 years ago. I would write it differently now but wanted to put it on this blog.

Darkly beautiful and twisted

In my opinion Tom Waits’ greatest album. He mixes the dark with the beautiful with the twisted elegantly weaving stories together as a third person narrator. Songs like Alice, Poor Edward and I’m Still Here fit into a category I call ‘beautiful songs about ugly things.’ In these three songs Tom puts the listener into the mindset of Lewis Carol and his obsession with Alice Lidell, a tortured suicidal two-faced (literally) man and the Alice Lidell and her childhood trauma. These songs have a fragile beauty to them that allows for the stories to take centre stage.

Tom also finds a way to mix in his trademark absurdity into the album. Kommienezuspadt sees Tom singing in a made up Bavarian style language. A fun detour for the album that is much needed after the devastation of Alice and before Poor Edward. Tom also finds a beautiful absurdity through songs like Flower’s Grave and Fish & Bird. He sings about putting flowers on a flower’s grave and the romance of a fish and bird. But he manages to find beauty in these subjects wistfully reflecting on a forgotten flower and finding beauty between the love of a fish and bird despite their separation between land and air.

My two favourite and most extreme detours from the album are Table Top Joe and Reeperbahn. Table Top Joe is maybe the most positive song despite the subject matter. It describes the life of Johnny Eck a side show performer born without a lower half. He shows an admirable amount of positivity in making a name for himself in Coney Island. Reeperbahn is almost the opposite of this song describing various lost souls and absurd characters who have their way to the reeperbahn a red light, entertainment district in Hamburg. It describes Rosie a woman who has been driven insane by the reeperbahn and Hans a gay man who found solace from the abuse in his home through selling lingerie in the reeperbahn. The songs ends with a verse almost treating the reeperbahn is it’s own character as a home for the downtrodden and discarded.

It’s interesting to think about if Alice is a concept album. Being based on a play Tom helped make there’s clear through lines and continued stories but there’s so many emotional and narrative detours. It makes the listener such for a concept and connections between songs which makes further listeners of the album more rewarding. The climax of the Lewis Carol portion of the album is Watch Her Disappear. This song reveals the extent of Lewis Carol’s obsession and creates a truly unnerving atmosphere through ambient and environmental noises. I see I’m Still Here as a sort of epilogue to this narrative showing Alice’s extreme trauma and deep loneliness.

The album has a beautiful ending. After all the twisted darkness and beauty explored it ends with a high pitched, twisting, instrumental string composition ending the album with true beauty.