Contains an untitled hidden track following "A Good Man Is Hard To Find".
Personnel includes: Tom Waits (vocals, acoustic & electric guitars, piano, organ, calliope, chamberlain); Larry Taylor (acoustic & electric guitars, bass); Joe Gore (electric guitar); Dawn Harms (violin); Matt Brubeck (cello, bass); Colin Stetson (clarinet, alto saxophone, tenor saxophone, baritone saxophone); Don Plonsey (clarinet); Bebe Risenfors (bass clarinet, accordion, saxophone); Charlie Musselwhite (harmonica); Nik Phelps (trumpet, tuba); Ara Anderson (trumpet); Gino Robair (marimba, bongos, timpani, gong, bells); Andrew Borger (marimba); Stewart Copeland (drums, log drums); Casy Waits, Bent Clausen (drums).
Engineers include: Oz Fritz, Jacquire King, Jeff Sloan.
Recorded at In The Pocket Studios, Forestville, California.
Like the simultaneously released ALICE, BLOOD MONEY features songs written for a Robert Wilson play. That's pretty much where the similarity ends; unlike ALICE's moody balladry, BLOOD MONEY is full of crazed, rhythmic pieces of sonic barbed-wire. The lyrics portray the main character of Wilson's WOYZECK, a man filled with madness and rage. The combination of junkyard percussion, near-psychotic vocals, and lounge-band-from-hell tones provides the perfect complement. The outlook is an unremittingly dark one, eventually bypassing existentialism ("God's Away on Business") in favor of outright misanthropy (the aptly titled "Misery is the River of the World"). The brief, Raymond Scott-like instrumental "Knife Chase" is a madcap interlude that brings the glory days of SWORDFISHTROMBONES to mind. Despite the gusto with which Waits throws himself into all this craziness, a couple of sadly romantic ballads provide a brief respite from the mayhem and make the rest of BLOOD MONEY feel all the more hard-hitting in contrast.
- Format: Vinyl
- Genre: Pop
