Troy Revisited

(This was originally posted July 24, 2006.)

I'm not really in a funk but the second offering I make is along the lines of the last. It might be the saddest song ever. From the opening line, "It's the same with men, as with horses and dogs, nothing wants to die," to the last line "the well is full of pennies" this is pound for pound the most tragic, horribly sad, and moving song in my collection.

The song starts with Mr. Waits explaining to his live audience that this song is based on a newspaper article that he read. Therefore we can assume there is a story here, but his lyric is anything but a narrative. It is as though he only studied the pictures that accompanied the article and not the article itself. Gleaning every ounce of detail from them, he creates a painfully real world, the honesty of his uncomplicated words making the whole matter all the more terrible. His story more gut-wrenching for the fact that we fill in the missing pieces to the story with our own versions of tragedy, hurt, and loss.

The worst of all; the final verse. First sung from the point of view of a son watching his mother despair, and in the last lines switching to the mother's voice. She only wants her son back. And "the well is full of pennies."

The link to the song is in the right column of links on this page simply labeled: "Listen."