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

With 56 tracks, I don’t even have space to touch on all the highlights. So instead, I’m just going to tell you about some of the things Orphans has in store for you. There’s a song about a convict who uses a fish to escape from prison. Two Ramones covers. A song cut from Frank’s Wild Years. A song that consists of Tom quoting facts about insects, and another where he talks about the cars he’s owned. He performs a piece by Charles Bukowski, and sets a Jack Kerouac poem to music. There’s a song about King Kong, the story of Tom’s first kiss, and, no kidding, a cover of the Dwarves’ song from Snow White. I think it’s also necessary to mention “Lucinda”, which to me is the Platonic ideal of Tom Waits songs. It sounds so natural, it’s hard to believe he hasn’t been performing it for 30 years now. And in “The Road to Peace”, Waits writes about the Israel-Palestine conflict, and finds everybody at fault. And unlike in “Day After Tomorrow”, he gets specific here, even naming President Bush as part of the problem. It feels very personal and immediate, especially with the syncopated, unrhymed lyrics. Waits once again asks how God can allow war, and in the end, wonders if “God Himself is lost and needs help / Out upon the road to peace”.