Tom Waits Announces 'Alice' and 'Blood Money' 20th Anniversary Reissues

Tom Waits has announced limited edition vinyl reissues of his 2002 records Alice and Blood Money to commemorate their 20th anniversaries. Arriving October 7 on Anti-, the vinyl records will be available on Waits' online merch store in translucent blue for Alice and translucent red for Blood Money. Other variants will also be available in independent record stores and online.

 

Alongside the announcement, Waits is also sharing previously unreleased live versions of Blood Money's "All the World Is Green" and Alice's "Fish and Bird." "All the World is Green" was recorded at a live show in Milan, while the stripped-down piano rendition of "Fish and Bird" was captured at a 2004 London performance. You can listen to both songs below.

 

Initially created for an avant-garde opera directed by Robert Wilson in the winter of 1992, Alice was the second collaboration between Waits, his wife Kathleen Brennan and Wilson after 1989's The Black Rider. Blood Money is based on the sociopolitical play Woyzeck, originally written by Georg Buchner in 1837. Waits and Brennan wrote songs for a production of Woyzeck — another collaboration with Robert Wilson — which later became Blood Money.

 

"Blood Money is flesh and bone, earthbound," said Waits of the record. "The songs are rooted in reality: jealousy, rage, the human meat wheel … They are more carnal. Kathleen and I are well suited to this material. She is hilarious, blasphemous and ominous. I like a beautiful song that tells you terrible things."

 

Check out the live versions of "All the World Is Green" and "Fish and Bird," plus the reissue tracklists below.