Tom Waits Week: Mule Variations and Beyond (1999-present)
Blood Money (2002) – The songs on this albums were used in a performance of Woyzeck, an unfinished 19th Century German play about a solider who goes mad. He is also instructed by a
doctor to eat nothing but peas. This has got to be a weird freaking play. Blood Money is, unsurprisingly, a dark album. It sounds rougher than Alice, and sometimes it seems like Tom is blurting out lyrics uncontrollably. For a play about a guy on an all-pea diet who murders his girlfriend after beating publicly humiliated by the man who raped her, it’s probably the right musical approach to take.
