Tom Waits Shares Previously Unreleased Version of ‘Get Behind the Mule’

The gravel-voiced troubadour has released the tune to commemorate the 25th anniversary of his Grammy Award-winning album, Mule Variations.

Tom Waits’ Grammy Award-winning 1999 album Mule Variations turns 25 this year, and to commemorate the occasion, the American musician turned actor has shared a previously unreleased version of the track, ‘Get Behind the Mule (Spiritual)’.

“Definitely part of the original idea was to do something somewhere between surreal and rural,” Waits said in a statement. “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….”

Listen to the previously unreleased version of ‘Get Behind the Mule (Spiritual)’ below.

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Further information about the song was provided on Waits’ Facebook account.

“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.”

Sadly the release of ‘Get Behind the Mule (Spiritual)’ is the closest we’ve come to new solo material from Waits since he released his 2011 album, Bad as Me. The singer-songwriter prefers to spend his time acting these days, popping up in last year’s The Absence of Eden and having memorable roles in Licorice Pizza, The Dead Don’t Die and The Ballad of Buster Scruggs.