Tom Waits
Mule Variations (Epitaph)
by Jon Sarre
“Heh, I’m big in Japan,” Tom Waits cracks wise at us on the opening track of Mule Variations, not only his first record in six years, but also his debut effort for a label (Epitaph) better known for the likes of Rancid and the Offspring than for supporting warm and fuzzy auteurs. “Big in Japan,” that first track, despite Waits’ admissions of humility (that, among others, he’s got “the sizzle, but not the steak”) ain’t nothin’ more than an Ali-like soliloquy comin’ from a guy who’s big everywhere. When he boasts that he’s “got the whole damn nation on its knees,” he’s not talking about Japan, he’s talking about this country. Everyone’s been drooling in anticipation of this record; the whole spectrum: preppy art students, junkies, Goth kids, folkies, Bruce-fuckin’-Springsteen, strippers, jazzbos, blues bores, punk rockers… Waits, over the years, has become a great big tent under which we can all get together. That’s remarkable considering this fucking culture is so rent by factionalism and inter-scene sniping. It’s the rare artist who can come along and be popular, yet not pander, be critically praised, yet comprehensible to the average jerk in traffic.
Mule Variations, much like its first track, features Waits as he is basically expected to come across, but not some back catalogue-by-the-numbers rehash. Much like Captain Beefheart, he’s a relentless retooler of any musical style that crosses his path (“accessible,” as barb detractors might toss in his direction, unfavorably comparing him to Cap’n Don Van Vliet), but he’s also ingenious enough to develop something new, an instrument perhaps, or maybe a sound, to give birth to some warped aural mind’s eye vision. He layers the this-musta-been-the-type-of-Blues-Blue-Cheer-were-referencing “Filipino Box Spring Hog,” for one, with turntable squawk, programmed noises, thunderous John Bonham-gone-native beats, horns, guitars, harmonica, and his own deranged preachings to produce a sort of block party from the ends of the Earth. The country-soulful “Get Behind The Mule,” on the other hand, goes more for a minimalistic approach with hollow percussion, Charlie Musslewhite’s harp and Smokey Hormel’s guitar dueling it out in close quarters, while Waits’ razor-scarred vocal chords send chills up yer spine, although you already know the drill and ya heard it a million times before.
My favorite track here, “Cold Water,” is essentially gin joint gospel stripped to a bare blues reel, pretty much unadorned, only flashy when Marc Ribot blows chunks all over the creakiest “solo” ever barely accomplished. Even Waits’ verses are straight outta Jimmie Rodgers or Leadbelly with hobos’n’wino’n’cops’n’watchin’ TV in the window of a furniture store (okay, Kerouac nod, or something close). That’s not songwriting, it’s anthropology, right? It’s still, however, in Waits’ hands comes off as clusterfuckin’genrefuck, much like “Pony,” the off-kilter Celtic weeper that follows it. He can do loungy jazz (“Black Market Baby” here) and moody torch songs about literally broken homes (“House Where Nobody Lives”) equally as well (or silly) and come off sounding profound or at least sincere, when anyone else would be simply cheezy.
Change-ups abound in Waits’ subject matter, too. A satirical joke about worshipping a new age God in the form of a “Chocolate Jesus” is followed by a murder ballad about a lost kid found cold in the weeds (“Georgia Lee”). When he sings “Why wasn’t God watching?,” suddenly faith has returned as real and touching as a shot to the soul. The “Chocolate Jesus'” joke suddenly melts away like such an imitation savior on a hot summer day (when, as Waits relates, you can eat J.C. over ice cream). Mule Variations’ closing victorious Salvation Army Thrift Store Band finale, “Come On Up to the House,” reads like an invitation for inclusion, everyone is welcome. Waits doesn’t pretend to own anything in the world, even the song. He casts himself as an itinerant singin’ preacher, just passin’ through to remind us that we all have that one thing in common: we’re all just visiting. We oughtta just lighten up about it then, eh?
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