Line #83 Music/MuleVariations


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/87abac991022636a49e7f19eef2d8e8c.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350: ''Come on up to the house!'']]
3
4	''Mule Variations'' is the thirteenth album by Music/TomWaits, released in 1999 through ANTI- and Epitaph Records. 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''.
5
6	!!Tracklist
7	# "Big in Japan" (4:05)
8	# "Lowside of the Road" (2:59)
9	# "Hold On" (5:33)
10	# "Get Behind The Mule" (6:52)
11	# "House Where Nobody Lives" (4:14)
12	# "Cold Water" (5:23)
13	# "Pony" (4:32)
14	# "What's He Building In There?" (3:20)
15	# "Black Market Baby" (5:02)
16	# "Eyeball Kid" (4:25)
17	# "Picture In A Frame" (3:39)
18	# "Chocolate Jesus" (3:55)
19	# "Georgia Lee" (4:24)
20	# "Filipino Box Spring Hog" (3:09)
21	# "Take It With Me" (4:24)
22	# "Come On Up To The House" (4:36)
23
24	!! ''What's He Troping In There?''
25	* AbandonedArea: "House Where Nobody Lives":
26	-->''Without love it ain't nothin' ''\
27	''But a house, a house where nobody lives''
28	* AmbiguouslyEvil: Both characters in "What's He Building In There?". The narrator may be right in suspecting the subject, but he could also be insane so, it's left ambiguous.
29	* ArtisticLicenseBiology: "Eyeball Kid" about a child who is one and all eyeball.
30	* ArtisticLicenseReligion: In-universe. The protagonist in "Chocolate Jesus" prays to a chocolate figurine of UsefulNotes/JesusChrist, instead of going to Church on Sunday.
31	-->''When the weather gets rough''\
32	''And it's whiskey in the shade''\
33	''It's best to wrap your savior up in cellophane''\
34	''He flows like the big muddy''\
35	''But that's OK''\
36	''Pour him over ice cream for a nice parfait''
37	* AsTheGoodBookSays: "Cold Water":
38	-->''I'm reading the Bible by a 40 watt bulb''
39	* BadassLongcoat: Waits on the cover.
40	* BizarreTasteInFood: "Filipino Box Spring Hog" is about a pig being cooked on the box spring of a bed, something Waits once did when he lived in Union Avenue in L.A.
41	-->'''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.
42	* CircusOfFear: "Eyeball Kid", where Waits plays a carnival barker calling people to come and watch a child being one and all eyeball.
43	* ComeToGawk: See CircusOfFear.
44	* CreepyMonotone: "What's He Building In There?"
45	* CutleryEscapeAid: Mentioned in "Get Behind The Mule".
46	-->[[DiggingToChina I'm diggin' all the way to China]]\
47	With a silver spoon\
48	While the hangman fumbles with the noose, boys\
49	The hangman fumbles with the noose\
50	She gotta get behind the mule\
51	In the mornin' and plow
52	* DeliberatelyMonochrome: The black-and-white album cover.
53	* DesperatelyLookingForAPurposeInLife: "Come On Up To The House":
54	-->''The world is not my home''\
55	''I'm just passing through''\
56	''[...] Does life seem nasty, brutish and short''\
57	''Come on up to the house''\
58	''The seas are stormy and you can't find no port''\
59	''Come on up to the house''
60	* DiggingToChina: "Get Behind The Mule":
61	-->''I'm diggin' all the way to China with a silver spoon''\
62	''While the hangman fumbles with the noose, boys''\
63	''The hangman fumbles with the noose''\
64	''She gotta get behind the mule''\
65	''In the mornin' and plow''
66	* FacelessEye: "Eyeball Kid" is about a child who is born as just an eye and details his life as a successful circus freak.
67	* FaceOnTheCover: Waits shown from the back.
68	* GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff: InUniverse subject of "Big In Japan".
69	-->''I got the moon, I got the cheese. I got the whole damn nation on its knees''
70	* HaveYouSeenMyGod: "Georgia Lee", about a young child who died in the street:
71	-->''Why wasn't God watching?''\
72	''Why wasn't God listening?''\
73	''Why wasn't God there for Georgia Lee?''
74	* InTheStyleOf: "What's He Building?" came from Waits's desire to do a spoken-word piece in the style of famed "word jazz" voice artist Ken Nordine.
75	* InspirationallyDisadvantaged: "Eyeball Kid". The narrator is a carnival barker trying to talk up a sideshow performer who seems to be just a disembodied eye. As the song progresses, the Eyeball Kid's tale moves from the gritty to the inspirational to the downright messianic, all to sell tickets.
76	-->''We're all lost in the wilderness, we're blind as can be''\
77	''He come down to teach us how to really see''\
78	''Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah''\
79	''So give it up and throw me down a couple of quid''\
80	''Everybody wants to see the Eyeball Kid''
81	* LocationSong: "Big In Japan", a song where the protagonist prides himself being a huge star in this country.
82	* NonAppearingTitle: The album title doesn't appear in any of the lyrics, though there is a track called "Get Behind The Mule".
83	* 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.
84	* OneWomanSong: "Georgia Lee".
85	* OneWordTitle: "Pony".
86	* ThePowerOfLove: "Picture In A Frame":
87	-->''I love you baby and I always will''\
88	''Ever since I put your picture in a frame''
89	* PreciousPhoto: "Picture In A Frame", as described above.
90	* ProductPlacement: "Filipino Box Spring Hog" mentions "Rum Crook", an American cigar brand.
91	* ProperlyParanoid: Possibly. "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...
92	* QuestioningTitle: "What's He Building In There?"
93	* RealLifeWritesThePlot:
94	** "Eyeball Kid" mentions that the child was born on December 7, 1949, which is Waits's own birthday.
95	** Kathleen mentioned in "Filipino Box Spring Hog" is a shout-out to Waits's wife, Kathleen Brennan, who is his co-lyricist.
96	** On a sadder note, "Georgia Lee" is about Georgia Lee Moses, a 12-year-old who was murdered.
97	* RepurposedPopSong: "Filipino Box Spring Hog" was originally meant for ''Music/BoneMachine (1992)''.
98	* SanitySlippageSong: It's one way of interpreting "What's He Building In There?".
99	* ShoutOut:
100	** "Hold On" describes a woman with "[[Creator/MarilynMonroe Monroe hips]]".
101	** "Filipino Box Spring Hog" quotes from the nursery rhyme "Sing A Song Of Sixpence".
102	--->''Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie''
103	** The line "cold was the night, hard was the ground" from "Georgia Lee" is a reference to the blues song "Cold Was The Night, Hard Was The Ground" by Blind Willie Johnson.
104	** "Come on Up To The House" references Thomas Hobbes's 17th century book "Leviathan", a treatise on political philosophy.
105	* 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".
106	* SpokenWordInMusic: "What's he Building In There?" features no singing and not much music either. It's just Waits wondering what the hell his neighbour is doing across the street, set to a haunting soundtrack.
107	* ThroughTheEyesOfMadness: See SanitySlippageSong.
108	* TheTropeKid:
109	** One of the criminals from "Get Behind The Mule" is known as the Pockmarked Kid.
110	** And of course there's "The Eyeball Kid".
111	* TheUnReveal: "What's He Building In There?". We never find out what the protagonist's neighbour is building in there. It's sort of the point, because the song is about suburban paranoia. He asserts "we have a right to know", but in fact we don't.
112	* YourFavorite: "Filipino Box Spring Hog":
113	-->'''t ain't the mincemeat filigree''\
114	''And it ain't the turkeyneck stew''\
115	''And it ain't them bruleed okra seeds''\
116	''Though she made them a-special for you''

Context Music / MuleVariations