How's It Gonna End?

I have an iPod shuffle that hasn't yet run out of batteries, with 50-100 songs from home on it. One of them happens to be "How's It Gonna End" by Tom Waits, and I feel blessed that this is so, because that song is completely ingenious. Even though it's obnoxious, since all of you probably want to hear about Germany and not some song that's you've heard a million times, I'm going to post the lyrics:

He had 3 whole dollars
A worn out car
And a wife who was
Leaving for good
Life's made of trouble
Worry, pain and struggle
She wrote good bye in
The dust on the hood
They found a a map of Missouri
Lipstick on the glass
They must have left
In the middle of the night

And I want to know
The same thing
Everyone wants to know:
How's it going to end?

Behind a smoke colored curtain
The girl disappeared
They found out
The ring was a fake
A tree born crooked
Will never grow straight
She sunk like a hammer
Into the lake
A long lost letter and
And old leaky boat
Promises are never meant
To keep

And I want to know
The same thing
Everyone wants to know:
How's it going to end?

The barn leaned over
The vultures dried their wings
The moon climbed up an empty sky
The sun sank down behind the tree
On the hill
There's a killer and he's coming
Through the rye
But maybe he's the father
Of that lost little girl
It's hard to tell in this light

And I want to know
The same thing
Everyone wants to know:
How's it going to end?

Drag your wagon and your plow
Over the bones of the dead
Out among the roses and the weeds
You can never go back
And the answer is no
And wishing for it only
Makes it bleed

Joel Tornabene was broken
On the wheel
Shane and Bum Mahoney on the lamb
The grain was as gold
As Sheila's hair
All the way from Liverpool
With all we could steal
He was robbed of twenty dollars
His body found stripped
Cast into the harbour
There and drowned

And I want to know
The same thing
Everyone wants to know:
How it going to end?

The sirens are snaking
Their way up the hill
It's last call somewhere in
The world
The reptiles blend in with the
Color of the street
Life is sweet at the edge
Of a razor
And down in the front row of
An old picture show
The old man is asleep
As the credits start to roll

And I want to know
The same thing
Everyone wants to know:
How's it going to end?

"Behind a smoke-colored curtain, the girl disappeared, they found out the ring was a fake" = ingenious. I love how carefully-arranged this song is; I know I say this a lot, but everything is perfectly spaced here. I think it's also a perfect example of images making a song. This song is only brief images, but they're so perfectly crafted, we feel like we're getting a whole story. And like a lot of Tom Waits songs (in my experience) we're completely drawn in -- I feel like I am part of this criminal movie or whatever it is, I'm in that dark alley.