Tom Waits Week: Mule Variations and Beyond (1999-present)

As with Alice, the songs aren’t really specifically based on the play, and you don’t need any knowledge of it going in. Songs like “Misery is the River of the World”, “Everything Goes to Hell”, or “God’s Away on Business” set a dark, nihilistic mood, without getting bogged down in gloom. There are moments of legitimate humor and the songs manage to be dark without being heavy. And in the midst of it all is the tender “All the World is Green”, which I absolutely love. It ends with the rousing “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, which is the most upbeat song about the unmourned dead ever written. (“A long dead soldier looks out / from the frame / No one remembers his war / No one remembers his name.”)