Saturday, March 6, 2010

#416: Mule Variations- Tom Waits

Listened to: MP3

I’m not the biggest Tom Waits fan alive, but I think this is his most diverse, dark, and experimental album yet. His work with Primus on “Big In Japan”, made a fast move to my iPod upon first listening, so that oughta tell you something. The grim, echoing, old-school radio howl of Lowside of the Road seems to drive you along like the Boatman on the River Styx. “Hold On” is a more Raindogs-esque Waits, with his vocals clearer, at least recording wise, and a tone reminiscent of “Time”, a track I can’t even type about without getting misty-eyed. “Get Behind The Mule” is a track where you can really feel the influence of his wife/collaborator Kathleen Brennan, and I mean that in the best possible way. “House Where Nobody Lives” is the first Waits-only composition on the album, and it’s tragic feel seems to tug at your heart in the most beautiful way his sandpaper voice can. “Cold Water” seems like an old song sung while working the railroad, and that is, again, meant in the best possible way. “Pony” is another one of my favorite kind of Waits track, his agonizing wails over sparse instrumentation.

After the halfway point, the bizarre, terrifying “What’s He Building?” (which I dare you to listen to with the lights off), “Black Market Baby” takes a more musical swing at scaring the shit out of me. The first part of the album is wok songs and laments, the second half is eery, spooking dark growls. “Eyeball Kid” is even creepier, and seems like the music Tim Burton makes love to, you know? Seriously, the hair is raising up on my arm right now. “Picture In A Frame” is a tender piano ballad, which is a welcome break from the fear I was racked with before. Of course, that soon dissipates to terror when “Chocolate Jesus” comes in. Tom Waits might be the scariest man I’ve ever listened to. Were it not for Waits’ voice, “Georgia Lee” could be on the Anthology of American Folk Music. “Fillipino Box Spring Hog” is another one that went straight to the iPod. Now, after such an odd, experimental track, only Waits would have the balls to write a gorgeous ballad and place it write after. The piano arrangement on this song is just marvelous, and proves just how talented a mainstream composer he is. The album closes on “Come On Up To The House”, a gospel-esque wail that perfectly closes an album that, I’m pretty sure is my favorite of his.

So, if you’re going to listen to one Tom Waits album, this’d be it. Well, and look up “Time”. Still love that track best of all.

-Mike

So, tomorrow is #298: Master Of Reality by Black Sabbath.

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