Although fans have claimed that this poem could possibly be about Waits Mule Variations album itself being that he stayed away from the public for seven years and then produced the album. As his fans wonder what he is up to and where he is, I can see how it relates to the Poem "What's He Building In There?" In other words what is Tom Waits up to these days? It has also been said that William Burroughs inspired him to write the poem because they collaborated on his last album The Black Rider. Waits has never openly said what the poem is about he only describes it as "the neighbor that is in us all..."

According to writer, Dave Dimartino, Tom Waits is a slightly off-centered traditional singer-songwriter, who has his own Beatn

coming from the shed and the rumors about the man in the shed, that the narrator almost lets his/her imagination run away with him/her. For example "He's pounding nails into a hardwood floor...and I swear to God I heard someone moaning low..." and "He has no friends but he gets a lot of mail...I'll bet he's spent a little time in Jail" I get the impression that the narrator is jealous that the man has not told anyone about what he is building, and the narrator feels like it is strange behavior to keep from others. As quoted from the poem when Waits says, "He's hiding something from the rest of us...He's all to himself..." also when he says "We have a right to know..."

In this Tom Waits poem, one could assume it is about a nosy neighbor (the narrator) wondering what the man next door in his shed is building; the narrator is all wound up with the sounds

In the poem we are more focused on the man building something and not knowing what it is. What really surprised me was the ending where he says, "We have a right to know..." I would expect the narrator to find out what the man is building but instead it is almost as if he is trying to cover up his nosy behavior to make him less peculiar to others. It is almost as if in his little world he believes that he should know everything that goes on. I guess that's why people like

I really found this poem humorous because how it is told through a nosy neighbor's point of view; the more I read, the more I

Some common words found in the essay are:
Tom Waits, Waits He's, Waits There's, Mule Variations, Rider Waits, William Burroughs, tom waits, Leave Beaver, Jack Kerouac, , What's Building, sounds coming shed, he's hiding rest, coming shed, shed building, hiding rest, mule variations, sounds coming, rest ushe's, building narrator, hiding rest ushe's, mule variations album, variations album, he's hiding,
Approximate Word count = 986
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)