Tom Waits comes to an interview prepared. He brings notes. He sidles up to the counter at Jerry's, a checkered-tablecloth joint in Monte Rio, Calif., orders scrambled eggs and coffee and pulls a worn and flattened notebook out of his back pocket. I have some answers here, he growls, positioning a pair of round, Coke-bottle eyeglasses on his nose. They might not be appropriate to the questions you're asking, but they're answers nonetheless. OK, here goes: Waits, 49, has just released his first album in six years, Mule Variations, on the punk-rock indie label Epitaph. Where's he been all this time? Waits dutifully flips through the notebook. Over his shoulder I can see spindly capital letters sprawling across pages. No peeking! he chides. Finally he settles on a page. A woman in Sebastopol had to be freed by the firefighters because she was trapped in a pair of designer jeans, he intones. They used wire cutters and needle-nose pliers. He puts the notebook down and swallows some coffee. I tell you, the news around here is remarkable. Now, what was the question?

Oh, never mind. We could obsess about where Waits has been, or we could just be really, really glad he's back. Mule Variations, his 17th album, is full of the kind of gnarled eclecticism that has become his hallmark. There are grumbled takes on Delta blues (Lowside of the Road), gospel shout-outs (Come On Up to the House) and raspy stabs at George Jones-style country (House Where Nobody Lives). But Waits's cast of characters--the dreamers and wanderers and no-gooders from albums like The Heart of Saturday Night in 1974 and Rain Dogs in 1985--seem to have a new sense of purpose. They're searching for stuff, be it an answer, a home or just a creed they can live by.

Most of the songs are collaborations with his wife of 18 years, Kathleen Brennan. It's she who encourages him to throw all his disparate influences together. Some people organize everything, he explains. I always find myself with a box, and in that box you'll find silverware, rice, cassettes, a toothbrush, an old wine bottle. Once we were moving and I found I had a pizza in with my records! Because the pizza box was the exact same size. So I don't always have a method. There's things that don't necessarily belong. I still keep them in there.

Waits's madness has made him one of the most deeply admired songwriters in pop today. To the postboomer generation, he's more Dylan than Dylan himself. Waits's melting-pot approach to Americana, his brilliant narratives and his hardiness against commercial trends have made him the ultimate icon for the alternative-minded. Epitaph signed Waits partly out of a belief that his ethos resonates with its roster of skatepunks and headbangers. Waits, for his part, appreciated Epitaph's counterintuitive approach to marketing. They have a group on the label that was hellbent on getting its record off the radio, for God's sake, he says. The record company was behind them 100 percent. That fervor spreads even to the musicians who work with him. We recorded in this old chicken ranch, says Beck guitarist Smokey Hormel, who played on Mule Variations. There's this little room with a barn door. He kept telling me, 'It sounds too pretty, I'm going to open the barn door.' So he did! You could hear the dogs in the background and see the people walking by on the road below. It was very rustic and homey. You forget that you're playing into a $20,000 microphone.

Waits grew up in Whittier and Pomona, Calif., but he gets hedgy when asked to supply details about his past. I'm more comfortable making stuff up than I am telling the truth, he says. Finally he lets this slip: My dad could stand on the beach and do a flip and come back down on his feet. His mother was a schoolteacher; she sang four-part harmony in an Andrews Sisters-type group. Nowadays Waits relishes his private life with Kathleen and their kids: two teenagers and a 5-year-old. He quit drinking and smoking. So he has settled down. I tell Waits there's a piano ballad on his new album, Take It With Me, that makes me cry, mostly because of the last verse.

In a land there's a town
And in that town there's a house
And in that house there's a woman
And in that woman there's a heart I love
I'm gonna take it with me when I go.

He droops his head bashfully. That's a very vulnerable song, he says. We wrote that together, Kathleen and I, and that felt good. Two people who are in love writing a song about being in love. Then he puts two triangles of toast in front of his eyes, because I'm crying just thinking about it, and maybe behind the toast he's tearing up, too.

thanks for sharing, bhattu. i'm a big fan of tom waits, but i prefer his earlier, more bluesy stuff to the incoherent stuff he puts out these days. still, his finest hour was in mid-career, before his voice got totally obliterated but after it started to get affected by the smokes and drinks....martha, ruby's arms, kentucky ave, tom traubert's blues, san diego serenade- these are all brilliant songs!!! anyway, mule variations was his last album. he recently came out with another new one- just within the past couple of months.


"He quit drinking and smoking."
woah, who knew?!?! too bad the effects of it are still with him....

Some of my fav. numbers frm Tom Waits
*Jersey gal sings sha-la-la
*saving all my love for u
*drunk on the moon
*i don't wanna grow up
*ruby's arms
*the briar and the rose
*who are u
*i hope that i don't fall in love with u
*little trip to the heaven
and all...
i have a huge cd collection of Tom's .(17 cd's)
greatest performer,singer, and songwriter forever..

ooh yeah, jersey girl is a great one!

and downtown train, bats in the belfry, blue skies, shiver me timbers, underground, innocent when you dream.....the list does go on and on!

nice to know that so many people listen to tom waits
i actually prefer his later stuff
rain dogs and mule variations are just awesome
on his earlier stuff closing time is superb
blood money and bone machine are too hardcore

I remember listening to Waites' Rain Dogs way back in early college days and being struck by his wild and raspy voice and his lyric poetry. Good to know that he's still at it.

Also he sang in a number of cult movies of which my favorite one is called Down By Law starring Bernardo Bertolucci. whinsical film, matched by Tom's whimsical voice.

If you guys like Waites you probably also like Leonard Cohen. he had an album out some years back that got good reviews.

anup

Yeah mr. Anup
Leonard's awesome too:)
esp. hey that's no way to say good bye, Suzanne,so long Marianne, sisters of mercy, heart with no companion, chelsea hotel no. 2, dance me to the end of love..
Foe :)

"night on earth" is another great jim jarmusch filim for which tom waits did the soundtrack. good stuff!

anyone else also a big fan of elvis costello?

Here PG! Not a big fan but a good listener of Elvis.
Esp. i will never fall in love again(austin powers: the spy who shagged me)
but not for me (the glory of gershwin)
veronica, 45, spooky girlfren (drum and bass guitar is beautifully played in this song),
days, this year's girl, you belong to me, complicated shadows, blame it on cain, welcome to the working week :)
the other side of summer,i almost had a weakness...

Any one a gr8 fan of Tenacious D?
Well, it contents hard lyrical explicit:)
But funno tho. like, one note song, hard f*ckin, fc*k her gently, co*k pushups, friendship test...

bhattu, interesting article. i am waiting for the CD to listen to waits. btw who wrote the article, which magazine or site? supply the appropriate credits when possible. mG

hi MG
there is actually big connection between me and this artical. back home we used to get newsweek in our house and flippin thru the page i saw the title. actually the title of the artical was "More Dylan than Dylan" so i read. i was totally taken aback by this artical i didn't know about tom waits before that but that very moment i was his biggest fan. i went next day found rain dogs and bought it . i have been hooked since then.

Copyright 1999 Newsweek
Newsweek

May 10, 1999, U.S. Edition

SECTION: ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT; Rock; Pg. 82

LENGTH: 778 words

HEADLINE: More Dylan Than Dylan

BYLINE: By Karen Schoemer

HIGHLIGHT:
The iconoclastic, eccentric and hugely talented Tom Waits returns with 'Mule Variations'

bhattu, your aside-story makes it a lot more interesting. nice read thanks for posting.