History Music / MuleVariations

''Mule Variations'' is a 1999 album by Music/TomWaits. At the time it was his first album in six years since ''Music/TheBlackRider (1993)'' and thus highly anticipated by fans. It is generally seen as one of his best records and won a UsefulNotes/GrammyAward for ''Best Contemporary Folk Album''.

'''Tracklist'''

* RefrainFromAssuming: "Big In Japan" is not a cover of the 1984 hit by Music/{{Alphaville}}.

''Mule Variations'' is a 1999 album by Music/TomWaits. At the time it was his first album in six years since ''Music/TheBlackRider (1993)'' and thus highly anticipated by fans. It is generally seen as one of his best records and won a UsefulNotes/GrammyAward for ''Best Contemporary Folk Album''. It was listed at #416 in Magazine/RollingStone's [[Music/RollingStone500GreatestAlbumsOfAllTime Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time]].

-->''Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie''

* AbandonedArea: "House Where Nobody Lives"
--> ''Without love it ain't nothin' ''
--> ''But a house, a house where nobody lives.''

* ArtisticLicenseReligion: The protagonist in "Chocolate Jesus" prays to a chocolate figurine of UsefulNotes/JesusChrist, instead of going to Church on Sunday.
--> ''When the weather gets rough''
--> ''And it's whiskey in the shade''
--> ''It's best to wrap your savior up in cellophane''
--> ''He flows like the big muddy''
--> ''But that's OK''
--> ''Pour him over ice cream for a nice parfait''
* AsTheGoodBookSays: "Cold Water"
--> ''I'm reading the Bible by a 40 watt bulb''

--> '''Waits''': ''That would fall in the category of surrural. [[Music/CaptainBeefheart Beefheart-ian]]. When we lived on Union Avenue in L.A., we had parties. We sawed the floorboards out of the living room, and we took the bed, the box spring, and first dug out the hole and filled it with wood, poured gasoline on it, and lit a fire. And the box spring over the top, that was the grill. We brought in a pig and cooked it right there.''
* ComeToGawk and CircusOfFear: "Eyeball Kid", where Waits plays a carnival barker calling people to come and watch a child being one and all eyeball.

* DesperatelyLookingForAPurposeInLife: "Come On Up To The House"
--> ''The world is not my home''
--> ''I'm just passing through''
--> ''(...) Does life seem nasty, brutish and short''
--> ''Come on up to the house''
--> ''The seas are stormy and you can't find no port''
--> ''Come on up to the house''
* DiggingToChina: "Get Behind The Mule"
--> ''I'm diggin' all the way to China with a silver spoon''
--> ''While the hangman fumbles with the noose, boys''
--> ''The hangman fumbles with the noose''
--> ''She gotta get behind the mule''
--> ''In the mornin' and plow''
* FacelessEye: "Eyeball Kid" is about a child who is born as just an eye and details his life as a successful circus freak.

* GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff: InUniverse subject of "Big In Japan"
--> ''I got the moon, I got the cheese. I got the whole damn nation on its knees''
* HaveYouSeenMyGod: "Georgia Lee", about a young child who died in the street.
--> ''Why wasn't God watching?''
--> ''Why wasn't God listening?''
--> ''Why wasn't God there for Georgia Lee?''

--> ''We're all lost in the wilderness, we're blind as can be''
--> ''He come down to teach us how to really see''
--> ''Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah''
--> ''So give it up and throw me down a couple of quid''
--> ''Everybody wants to see the Eyeball Kid ''

* OneWomanSong: "Georgia Lee"

* ThePowerOfLove: "Picture In A Frame"
--> ''I love you baby and I always will''
--> ''Ever since I put your picture in a frame''
* PreciousPhoto: "Picture In A Frame", as above.

* ProperlyParanoid: "What's He Building In There?" is a haunting track about a man spying at his neighbour and all the questions that come up in his mind when he is watching him. It's never made entirely clear whether the narrator of the song is just an over-paranoid and unstable person fixating on some innocent and harmless (if slightly reclusive and unconventional) neighbour, or whether the neighbour actually is up to something very sinister indeed...

* RealLifeWritesThePlot: "Eyeball Kid" mentions that the child was born on December 7, 1949, which is Waits own birthday. Kathleen mentioned in "Filipino Box Spring Hog" is a shout-out to Waits' wife, Kathleen Brennan, who is his co-lyricist. On a sadder note, "Georgia Lee" is about Georgia Lee Moses, a 12-year-old who was murdered.

* SanitySlippageSong and ThroughTheEyesOfMadness: It's one way of interpreting "What's He Building In There?"

** "Hold One" describes a woman with "[[Creator/MarilynMonroe Monroe hips]]".

--> ''Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie''.

** "Come on Up To The House" references Thomas Hobbes' 17th century book "Leviathan", a treatise on political philosophy.
** "What's He Building In There?" is used in the opening scene of ''Film/EnronTheSmartestGuysInTheRoom'', a documentary about the WhiteCollarCrime that brought Enron to its downfall.
* SpecialGuest: Larry [=LaLonde=] (Music/{{Primus}}) plays guitar on "Big in Japan" and Charlie Musselwhite plays harp on "Get Behind The Mule", "Chocolate Jesus", "Filipino Box Spring Hog" and "Come On Up To The House".
* SpokenWordInMusic: "What's he Building In There?" features no singing and no music either. It's just Waits wondering what the hell his neighbour is doing across the street, set to a haunting soundtrack.

* YourFavorite: "Filipino Box Spring Hog:"
-->'''t Ain't the mincemeat filigree''
-->''And it ain't the turkeyneck stew''
-->''And it ain't them bruleed okra seeds''
-->''Though she made them a-special for you.''

* RealLifeWritesThePlot: "Eyeball Kid" mentions that the child was born on December 7, 1949, which is Waits own birthday. Kathleen mentioned in "Filipino Box Spring Hog" is a shout-out to Waits' wife, Kathleen Brennan, who is his co-lyricist.

# "What's He Building?" (3:20)

* QuestioningTitle: "What's He Building?"

* ObsessionSong: "What's He Building In There?", while not a "song" in the actual sense, describes a man who is obsessed with finding out what his neighbour is doing on the other side of the street?

--> ''There's nothin in the world''

''Mule Variations'' is a 1999 album by Music/TomWaits. At the time it was his first album in six years since ''Music/TheBlackRider (1993)'' and thus highly anticipated by fans. It is generally seen as one of his best records and won a UsefulNotes/GrammyAward for ''Best Contemporary Folk Album''. It was listed at nr. #416 in Magazine/RollingStone's [[Music/RollingStone500GreatestAlbumsOfAllTime Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time]].

'''Mule Variations''' is a 1999 album by Music/TomWaits. At the time it was his first album in six years since ''Music/TheBlackRider (1993)'' and thus highly anticipated by fans. It is generally seen as one of his best records and won a UsefulNotes/GrammyAward for ''Best Contemporary Folk Album''. It was listed at nr. #416 in Magazine/RollingStone's [[Music/RollingStone500GreatestAlbumsOfAllTime Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time]].

* YourFavorite: "Filipino Box Spring Hog"
--> '''t Ain't the mincemeat filigree''
--> ''And it ain't the turkeyneck stew''
--> ''And it ain't them bruleed okra seeds''
--> ''Though she made them a-special for you.''

'''Mule Variations''' is a 1999 album by Music/TomWaits. At the time it was his first album in six years since ''Music/TheBlackRider (1993)'' and thus highly anticipated by fans. It is generally seen as one of his best records and won a Grammy Award for ''Best Contemporary Folk Album''.

* TheTropeKid: One of the criminals from "Get Behind The Mule" is known as the Pockmarked Kid.

* RefrainFromAssuming: "Big In Japan" is not a cover of the 1984 hit by Alphaville.

The [[SuspiciouslySimilarSong similarities]] between "Step Right Up" from Mule Variations and a Frito-Lay ad jingle caused a bit of a legal stir between Tom and the company.

* OneWomanSong: Georgia Lee

* GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff: "Big In Japan"