The Mule (song)
| The Mule | |
|---|---|
| Deep Purple | |
| publication | February 1971 |
| length | 5:23 |
| Genre (s) | Rock , hard rock , psychedelic rock |
| Author (s) | Ritchie Blackmore , Ian Gillan , Roger Glover , Jon Lord , Ian Paice |
| Label |
Harvest (Europe) Warner Bros. (USA, Japan) |
| album | Fireball |
The Mule is a song by British hard rock band Deep Purple that was first released in July 1971 on their fifth studio album, Fireball . It is inspired by the character of the same name Isaac Asimov.
Emergence
The first musical sketches for The Mule were made at the end of 1970 during the band's two-week stay in Welcombe, a town on the north coast of Cornwall . When Deep Purple's concert tour started again in 1971, there was some free time during a break from playing in January 1971 to complete the album Fireball . An experiment by Ian Paice, who wanted to give The Mule a psychedelic flanger effect, failed when he turned the tape over and played it backwards. Half of his drum track was erased by accident. But since Paice's drums had already been transported to the next venue in Europe, he played the deleted track with a borrowed drum kit in order to repair it by overdubbing . A slight irregularity can be heard, however.
music
The Mule starts with the sound of a tambourine , and then opens the piece with a huge “ chord avalanche”. The first one and a half minutes of the piece give singer Ian Gillan space for his typical aggressive style of singing. Then the song slides into an "oriental melody line", a psychedelic-funky middle section that offers scope for Ian Paice's six-minute drum solo in the live performances. At the end of the studio version, the piece sparks hammering and shimmering instrumentalism. The introductory guitar riff concludes the song.
Live performances
The Mule was introduced to Deep Purple's live program after its release. It was used, after a short vocal opening part by Ian Gillan, also in the live album Made in Japan , as a free space for Ian Paice's drum solo.
After the Mark II line-up broke up in 1973, The Mule was removed from Deep Purple's live program. In 1974 and 1975 Ritchie Blackmore played the guitar riff of The Mule after Paice's drum solo in the song You Fool No One . Short excerpts of the song were also played in 1993 on a European tour.
Live cover version
In 2007 the song appeared on the Made in Japan album, which was covered live by Dream Theater .
Web links
- The Mule in “Deep Purple Song Lyrics” on “The Highway Star”
- Audio samples from Scandinavian Nights ( Memento from June 15, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) (Spring 1972) and Live in Japan ( Made in Japan , August 1972)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Jürgen Roth and Michael Sailer: Deep Purple, the story of a band . Verlagsgruppe Koch GmbH / Hannibal, 2005. p. 145.
- ↑ Jürgen Roth and Michael Sailer: Deep Purple, the story of a band . Verlagsgruppe Koch GmbH / Hannibal, 2005. pp. 145–146.
- ↑ Audio sample from California Jam (April 1974)
- ↑ Audio sample from Live in Stuttgart (October 1993)