Just like a stranger with the weeds in your heart

Many thanks to muchabstracted, whose knowledge of LJ style overrides has enabled me to self-promote even more shamelessly than usual. (See sidebar. Look, I'm very proud of it.) I've even got a formal bibliography now.

Picked up Tom Waits' Blood Money today: you can't tell from listening that it's music for Woyzeck, but it's fantastic stuff all the same. It's all ramshackle piano and carnival drums, derelict brass and a drunken calliope, and dryly bleak as hell except for the few songs that are so wistful and fragile, you know they'll shatter in the next scene. Bump-and-grind in a hall of mirrors. Shilling for a sideshow while the moon drops out of the sky. I know Woyzeck (or Wozzeck, if you know the Berg opera) is Büchner's, but I'm still reminded of Brecht. If there's one thing you can say about mankind / There's nothing kind about man . . .

And now for some egregious memery, unapologetically stolen from Tim:

Choose a band/artist and answer in song TITLES by that band: Tom Waits
Are you female or male: "Gun Street Girl"
Describe yourself: "Dead and Lovely"
How do some people feel about you: "Little Drop of Poison," "Trouble's Braids," "Another Man's Vine"
How do you feel about yourself: "Everything You Can Think Of Is True"
Describe an ex-girlfriend/boyfriend: "Watch Her Disappear"
Describe your current girlfriend/boyfriend: "Coney Island Baby"
Describe where you want to be: "Anywhere I Lay My Head"
Describe what you want to be: "The Briar and the Rose"
Describe how you live: "Innocent When You Dream"
Describe how you love: "Tango Till They're Sore"
Share a few words of wisdom: "The Piano Has Been Drinking"

(I'd have done this with the Dresden Dolls, but I think they need to put out another album before I can ransack them for musical memes . . .)