Oh, never mind. We could obses 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 o18 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 songwiters
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 Pamona, 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
harmonay in an Andrews Sister-type group. Nowadays Waits relishes his
provate 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.