| Tom Waits – Alice Lyrics | 12 years ago |
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This song is about obsession/paedophilia and yes the Dodgson (aka Lewis Carrol) / Alice Liddell affair is the vehicle we travel in. ' To go skating on your name And by tracing it twice' is an obvious metaphor for writing the 2 books Alice (in wonderland) and Alice (through the looking glass). 'The only strings that hold me here Are tangled up around the pier' tell us his obsession is unconsumated because of taboo. 'A murder of silhouette, crows I saw' Waits brilliantly paints the landscape parralleling his own demise with the totally correct collective noun for the carion bird . Is this also a metaphor for Dodgson the photographer (all black and white in those days) or maybe Dodgson the deacon. The crows being the black garb of his associates, priests carrion to his soul perhaps? So where does Waits go to when he falls through the ice in Al ICE's name. Well Alice goes to Wonderland when she falls down the rabbit hole but I think Waits here goes to Dreamland. You know the place in Coney Island where TableTop Joe hangs out. It is after all dreamy weather we are on. |
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