Small change

"As wiseacre and rambunctious as that particular song may be, Small Change is electrically charged with a pathos that comes across as both false and real, with Waits playing the raconteur masking his very real sadness behind expressions of sadness. "Bad Liver and a Broken Heart" launches a counteroffensive against his congenital sentimentality, as he slyly undercuts his own pieties: "The moon ain't romantic, it's intimidating as hell," he crows. Deeply embedded in the underbelly, Small Change is nevertheless Waits' most personal, even is most confessional album, somehow refracting the real person through the persona.It didn't take much for Small Change to outsell Waits' previous albums, and it finally established him as an artist who could headline instead of support".

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