Tom Waits Shares Previously Unheard Rendition of 'Get Behind The Mule'

Included in Rolling Stone’s 100 Greatest Song Writers of All Time and a 2011 inductee into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Tom Waits is one of the most innovative artists in popular music. His singular vision that embraces everything from folk to blues to tin-pan-alley to jazz to gospel to cabaret has been influential for many artists, including Bruce Springsteen, Tori Amos and Elvis Costello. His embrace of beat writers like Jack Kerouac and spoken word poetry also became a part of a blueprint for early hip hop artists like Chuck D; all in service of his experience of the human condition from every rung of the ladder. He has a voice and eye so singular that ‘Waitsian’ has become an adjective used by critics and dictionaries to describe his aesthetic and style.

The 1999 release of his thirteenth studio album ‘Mule Variations’ offers the most complete picture of his artistry while also marking the beginning of the indie label ANTI- Records. A sister label to the legendary punk outfit Epitaph Records, ANTI- was formed in 1999 specifically to release ‘Mule Variations.’ “Reaching the 25-year milestone for Anti Records, I am filled with gratitude for Tom Waits and his album, 'Mule Variations', which didn't just start our label; it sparked a lasting partnership built on trust, creativity, and a love for pushing artistic boundaries,” said Epitaph Founder and CEO Brett Gurewitz. Added ANTI- President Andy Kaulkin: “I've personally been a major Tom Waits fan for as long as I can remember. We started the label to release his music. Tom's embodiment of the spirit of artistic authenticity and resilience was our north star when we started out, and his unparalleled creativity continues to inspire and drive everything we do.”

On this album, edgy stomps, humor and experimentation are interspersed with some of the most beautiful and personal songs he’s ever written. In celebration of the label and album’s 25th anniversary this year, today a previously unheard rendition of the song “Get Behind The Mule” has been released. In this alternate take of the album's iconic track, Waits' gospel moans resonate with raw emotion, accompanied only by a gritty Wurlitzer. This stripped-down rendition amplifies the dark narrative of murder and perseverance, with the lyrics even slightly altered, rendering it with an even starker intensity than the original LP version. Listen below.
 

In 1983 with the release of his album ‘Swordfishtrombones’, Waits departed from his 70’s era noir romanticism and traditional Tin Pan Alley songwriting to become a fiercely inventive sound sculptor, abstract orchestrator and miner of the subconscious while still retaining his innate lyricisms, melodic sophistication and humanity.

Instead of telling stories in sung verse, he began framing words with impressionistic aural landscapes. The trademark piano-plus-combo foundation (with occasional orchestral underpinnings) of Waits’ first ten years of recording mutated into an array of things - calliopes, Balinese metal aunglongs, glass harmonica, bass boo-bams, brake drums, parade drums, bowed saw, pump organ, accordion, mellotron, Optigon, Farafisa, prepared piano, banjo, and even something that Waits had built: a percussion instrument he dubbed the condundrum.

‘Mule Variations’ expands upon elements of both phases of his storied career. With surreal exteriors and disquieting interiors melding into one, the dark, bluesy, and often tender and poignant stream-of-consciousness storytelling that was representative of the early years (‘The Heart of Saturday Night’) is surely present on 'Mule Variations’, as are the more angular and subversive experimental sounds of the Island Records years (‘Swordfishtrombones’).

"Definitely part of the original idea was to do something somewhere between surreal and rural,” Waits explained. “We call it surrural. That's what these songs are---surrural. There's an element of something old about them, and yet it's kind of disorienting…” The album track “Hold On” was nominated for Best Male Rock Performance at the GRAMMY’s that year, and the album was the GRAMMY award winner for Best Contemporary Folk Album.

Said Pitchfork in their 1999 album review: “to reach the levels of one of his very best songs, you'd have to spend the next twenty years training with ninjas in a high mountain monastery, travel from there to Haiti to have bizarre Voudun rites performed over your writing hand, and then sell your soul to Satan for good measure. Better get started.”

Photo Credit: Jean Bapiste-Mondino