Blood Money is etched. It’s scratched out in bold, dark lines, with marimba, trumpet, and bass clarinet and contains some songs of Tom Waits’ most memorable melodies. The songs are declarative, sardonic, unforgiving, musical dispatches, from the bottom of the heap. “Blood Money is flesh and bone, earthbound,” said Waits. “The songs are rooted in reality: jealousy, rage, the human meat wheel…They are more car- nal. I like a beautiful song that tells you terrible things. We all like bad news out of a pretty mouth. I like songs to sound as though they’ve been aging in a barrel and distressed.”

The album contains songs written for the musical Woyzeck, based on the play of the same name by Georg Büchner. The theatrical adaptation was directed by Robert Wilson, with whom Waits had worked on two previous plays: The Black Rider and Alice, both of which resulted in soundtrack albums. The latter was released simultaneously in 2002 with Blood Money. The play premiered at the Betty Nansen Theatre in Copenhagen in November 2000.

20th Anniversary METALLIC SILVER vinyl edition produced by ANTI in 2022. Remastered from the original analog tapes in 2018. Supervised by Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan.