The sururalist

Tom Waits's new Mule Variations

by Richard C. Walls

Tom Waits's new Mule Variations (Epitaph) sounds like a coda to a long period of experimentation -- an after-the-storm reflection on Tom's wild years, which began with the expansive musical murmurings of '83's Swordfishtrombones and climaxed with the relentless corrosiveness of '93's Bone Machine, the latter being one of the all-time great uneasy-listening records, right up there with Captain Beefheart's Trout Mask Replica (though different from the Captain's epic in every other way). It sounds settled and assured, in its bizarre way, as befitting the work of a dedicated weirdo who's pushing 50.

There's a lot of blues here, tinged with surrealism -- what Waits calls his "sururalism" songs -- and a few cuts with the harsh clank and rattle that he perfected on Bone. But it's the ballads that seem most singularly Waitsian. Waits (often with collaborator and wife Kathleen Brennan) writes some of the most godawful maudlin ballads imaginable and then makes them sound not only palatable but hip. And he does it by leaning into the maudlinity, like a driver turning into an icy swerve.

Again and again, he gets away with murder. On "House Where Nobody Lives" he sings, "What makes a house grand/Ain't the roof or the doors/If there's love in a house/It's a palace for sure" -- lyrics that would have made Norman Rockwell retch but which Waits delivers in an unsavory, raspy drawl that suggests the sort of pathetic, beat-up soul who might grasp at this homily with genuine hope. Like a sloppy drunk singing "Bye Bye, Blackbird" with way too much conviction, he sounds both ridiculous and sad -- which is pretty much a definition of "grotesque."

Waits seems to know just when to ratchet up the intensity of the bruised persona that threads through his singing, and though "House" gets the blurry enunciation of a sad slob, "Georgia Lee," a song about a young girl who comes to harm that's freighted with the repeated refrain "Why wasn't God watching?", sounds as if it were being sung by a drooling maniac. Again, the bloated delivery serves its purpose: those of us too sophisticated or callous to respond to the hoary sentimentality may find Waits's arabesque acting-out engaging, even moving. Similarly, "Picture in a Frame" (which has the wonderful non-sequitur "I'm gonna love you/Till the wheels come off"), "Pony," and "Take It with Me" -- songs with simple heart-tugging premises -- are made to sound rich and strange by dint of being given the gargoyle treatment.

When Waits isn't being sadder than sad, he's living the life of no-visible-means with ingenuity, "watching TV in the window of a furniture store" on "Cold Water," imparting dubious wisdom on "Lowside of the Road" and "Get Behind the Mule," improvising a feast on "Filipino Box Spring Hog." This is Waits the perpetual down-and-outer, the low-lifer sharing his bogus insights ("The dog won't bite/If you beat him with a bone") and consorting with a cast of colorful characters. One can hear traces of the experimental years in these songs, mainly in the dollops of nicely garbled percussion, though the most effective mood enhancements are contributed by Marc Ribot's guitar and Charlie Musselwhite's harmonica.

There's one song here that defies categorization, being neither blues, ballad, nor low-rent shtick. "What's He Building?" is spoken-word, with Waits as a man who becomes increasingly obsessed with a neighbor who keeps to himself. Over the sound of radio static and some avant-garde music, Waits starts out with the title question but quickly tips his hand as to the unhealthy nature of his curiosity: "He has subscriptions to those magazines . . . He never waves when he goes by . . . He's hiding something from the rest of us." This is a very clever "song" on its own, but again it's Waits's voice that's the secret ingredient. Starting out with a nice blend of perplexity and belligerence, by mid-rant he's become positively dangerous: "I heard he has an ex-wife in some place called Mayors Income, Tennessee . . . and he used to have a consulting business in Indonesia," he mutters darkly, pronouncing the place names with a palpable disgust that's pretty damn funny.

Not everyone would think so, of course. Word is that this has a chance of being Waits's breakthrough album, the one that makes it into the Top 20, what with him being so influential and all and so many people having finally caught up with whatever it is he's doing. But I don't see it. I don't hear the influence anywhere, either directly or an assumed tone, and I don't see how Waits's grand-guignol emotionalism relates to any prevailing winds. Somewhat mellowed but still too rarefied for mass consumption is the way I see it. Oh and pretty good, too.