The album that saw Tom Waits try to “outdo” ‘Rain Dogs’
Upon its release, Tom Waits’ 1985 album Rain Dogs became something of a legend.
Widely regarded as his opus, the album came ninth in his catalogue. Grounded in the folk tradition, Waits has established himself as a crooner with a dangerous edge, chronicling his dark, twisted visions of Americana with his signature poetry. Rain Dogs, in contrast, heard his sound veer into the experimental. With his customary growl still intact, he brought forth an inventive tone to his work that showed a varied, spirited side of his musicianship.
The years that followed Rain Dogs’ success saw a furthering of Waits’ constant evolution. Still, once his contract with Island Records ended, Waits’ work slowed as he spent time with his growing family. When the time came to record what would become 1999’s Mule Variations, some five years later, the musician found himself back in the familiar enclave of Prairie Sun Studios in Sonoma County, California.
The environment had proven fruitful for Waits; there, he had recorded Bone Machine and The Black Rider. He also continued his brilliant partnership with frequent collaborator Jim Jarmusch: Waits began the film score for Jarmusch’s Night on Earth, and Jarmusch directed the accompanying videos for Bone Machine and filmed Waits’ scene with Iggy Pop for his film Coffee and Cigarettes, fashioning the studio as an old-school diner where the two musicians have an awkward, humorous conversation.
Needless to say, there was a distinct comfort that allowed for vulnerability in the walls of Prairie Sun. The pressure remained, however self-inflicted it was, to push Waits further as both storyteller and musician. Waits found himself enchanted by two worlds and, heavily inspired by the early blues song traditions, he referred to his album’s contents as “surrural”, a cross between “surreal” and “rural”.
In Mule Variations’ lyrics, Waits dives into the everyday lives of his cast of characters, where songs like ’Hold On’ and ‘Get Behind The Mule’ reveal a spirit and drive that rest in the mundane and unremarkable. Songs like ‘Georgia Lee’ shift into more harrowing realms, as Waits takes the real-life story of murder and unrest and channels his empathy into a heartbreaking tribute ballad.
Waits’ purging of his emotions saw a man transfixed by the same haunts, life, death, heartbreak and the dual nature of good and evil, with an emphasis on the raw grit of reality. Reflecting on the recording sessions, engineer Oz Fritz says that he sensed the tension Wait exerted on himself during the process.
“I observed a lot of pressure that he was putting on himself,” he recalls to Tape Op. “Then I realised, ‘This guy’s trying to outdo himself from the past. He’s trying to do another Rain Dogs.‘”
Whether consciously trying to “outdo” his former self or not, Waits naturally seemed to progress his framework into unexplored worlds. At the same time, Waits was then 50 years old with a nearly three-decade-long career; there was nothing to prove, beyond showing that his talents persisted, which, frankly, was no question. No matter what, Waits was driven by the complexity of existence, and his songwriting operated as a means to answer his eternal questions.
“Tom always wanted sweet and sour, dark and light, or high fidelity and low fidelity,” engineer Jacquire King explains. “It was always about a juxtaposition of perception, as well as sound and quality; in the same way that Tom has his many sides. He’s got those aggressive, howling tunes, but then he’s got ballads that will absolutely crush you.”
Many musicians have, and will continue to, seek a perfect balance between evocative anger and opposing softness. Waits finds it seamlessly and, at his best, channels an emotional resonance that distorts reality, as though he personifies each of his stories.
