Many years ago, when I was working for a Birmingham-based PR company, promoting to press and radio, Loudon Wainwright III was one of our clients and could often be found bunking down on the couch during promotional tours. He was a hugely personable, entertaining and self-deprecating, one for whom I’ve harboured a lingering affection. Musically too, he’s figured large in my life, from his first album back in the day and now, at 75, with number thirty-one, gently mockingly titled in the wake of his lifetime achievement award at the BBC 2 Radio Folk Awards and, featuring contributions from frequent collaborators David Mansfield on mandolin, pedal steel, violin, 12-string guitar and Weissenborn, banjo and harmonica player Chaim Tannenbaum and bassist Tony Scherr, his first collection of original material since 2014.
Harmonica blowing, he kicks off with the lively I Been, essentially a list song about filling up the time until the other shoe drops (“I been boatin’ & fishin’ & mopin’ & wishin’/And skiin’ on water and snow/Walkin’ & joggin’ & skatin’ & tobogganin’”) with his usual self-accusatory wit (“I’ve been lyin’ & cheatin’ nudgin’ browbeatin’”), including a line about “fartin’ whenever I sneeze”, always figuring out “a way to live one more day”.
Given he writes in the sleeve notes, “I’m near the end, time’s almost up” and “How much longer can this go on?” thoughts of mortality and reflections on a life lived loom large. The unaccompanied One Wish reflects on blowing out the birthday candles and pondering, “What do we wish for? toys, fame, or money?/Health, happiness, long life, a love that is true?/A puppy, a pony, some peace in the valley?” adding the philosophical note that “You never stop dreaming you live life by wishing/Wishfully thinking is how you get through”.
It Takes 2 is pretty much his version of the old Marvin Gaye domestic bliss hit (“When things get rough one’s not enough/These days it takes two/Two for the road, we shoulda knowed/Two when it’s time for tea/It takes two to boogaloo”) while the simply strummed Tolstoy-quoting Family Vac is another in his long line of songs about dysfunctional family life, where he declares “I’m gonna pack up the car, load up the bike and the kayak/And leave the fucking family at home” because “When it comes to your so-called “loved ones”/Sometimes you gotta get away” and “because your dearest and nearest, they’re the most dangerous/They’re the ones that make you crazy”.
While not strictly continuing the train of thought, next up is Hell, an amusing backwoods banjo-plucked ditty imaging himself, “one sorry S.O.B”, back in the fiery furnace where they’re forming a softball team (“Hitler’s pitching, Stalin’s catching, old Pol Pot’s playing third/Milosevich’ll be at short, he’s quick or so we heard”), veined with a political commentary on how mankind’s always screwing up its second chances (“Next time you get a body, maybe you might take a care/But if you don’t, don’t worry, son, because you’re always welcome here”).
Front porch, thigh-slapping folk, continues to make its presence felt on Little Piece of Me, another reflective number about looking back on the years (“I been coming here since 1971/I didn’t get a lot of sleep back then, but I sure had fun”), wondering what might have been lost and wryly touching on that survivor frame of mind when you reach a certain age (“Quite a few that I have loved have up and died/But I’m eternal you could say/I’m immortal, maybe for today”) but tinted with the observation that “One of these days I’ll be gone/All that will be left is this song”. Not a bad legacy.
It’s lyrically complemented by the strum of the contemplative London double-decker referencing Back In Your Town (“I’m back in that place/Last time I left with hardly a trace/Now that I’ve returned/Ask me what have I learned?”) with all the attendant regrets (“You leave someone behind and you think you won’t mind it/Till you go back and find you still care ….I walked right past your house/Feeling like a refugee and a louse/You were at home, but you were not alone/You were there with your kids and your spouse/I walked right past your house/Yes and I’m feeling bereft/I’m feeling like I never even left”).
Sandwiched in-between is No Man’s Land, a bluesy swing-flavoured conversationally sung storysong from the perspective of his late canine companion, Harry, as a dog of divorce (“He lives on the East Side, now she’s on the West/The park is in between ‘em and I guess it’s for the best/There in no man’s land I can get me a walk/When they meet in the middle to hand me off”), though the lines “I’m just a dumb mutt and what the hell do I know?/Except the day that they got me sure was a great day/And they’d get back together if I had my way” might just as easily apply to a child’s experience.
A full brass section and backing singers are rolled in for Town and Country, a return to New York after rural isolation (“I’m done with the country, no fun, I had to leave it/The crickets made me nervous”) and the rush of excitement (“you could say it was elation/Just to be back in the city with all of you people down here…Behind those masks there’s all those faces/I’m so excited seeing parking spaces/There’s talking & there’s laughing & there’s screaming & there’s singing down here”), except, being who he is, there’s also a sardonic counterbalance (“Last night we ate in a restaurant/Fine wine good food all that we wanted…But there was a moment that was a little unstable/A rat big as a cat ran under the table/I guess the rats are all happy, there’s plenty to eat down here”), while he can’t resist throwing in a family reference at the end (“My dear mother was afraid of the city/She’d say, “Don’t go there Loudie, it’s shady and it’s shitty”/She was raised in the country, what could that poor woman know?/My father went to town, he was a workin’ slob/Getting into trouble was his other job”).
In direct contrast to the sensibilities, there comes the slow-paced drawl of Island, which celebrates being away from the big city noise (“Living on an island, you and me/Couple of kids in a hammock/One on a swing hung from the same tree/Hey, I’m on a lawn mower, you’re folding laundry”), the only downside being boredom, easily relieved with a jigsaw puzzle.
He returns to sing unaccompanied, save for backing harmonies, with It, a typical Wainwright vision of life (“It’s a chase it’s a race/It’s gonna scratch you”) and living with depression (“It’s inside your head/It’s a curse it’s a hearse/It’s come to claim you…It’s a cloud it’s a shroud/It will enfold you…It’s gonna nail you/It will defeat you/It’s gonna eat you/It’s gonna bite you/It’s bound to smite you”).
His wives and children are regular song subjects, and it’s his third daughter Lucy (also the subject of Screaming Issue) who is the centre of Hat, the title apparently the first word she said (“She didn’t say Ma, she didn’t say Pa/She said the first thing important she saw”) prompting his musing on the various meanings and purposes (“So much more than something that you just wear on your head/Shade from the sun, cover from snow and rain/Keep your big secret under it – I mean your brain…The good wear the white ones – it’s black for the bad guys… You can pass it around or throw it down in defeat/There’s the man on the mound and the cop on the beat/Remove it in church, singing “Say can you see?”/Uncover your head for God and Liberty”). Ultimately, it’s a metaphor for not being labelled as just one thing.
And so it comes to the campfire singsong title track, which turns out to be a simple love (“I have done and won some things, awards, I have a few/But the biggest prize, the great surprise is I managed to win you/Trophies on my mantelpiece, citations on my wall/Accolades and autographs, yes, I guess I’ve got them all/But all these honors don’t add to all that much, it’s true/That the biggest prize, the great surprise is I managed to win you”), the “you” being his current partner New Yorker editor Susan Morrison, also the subject of It Takes 2.
Continuing on concerns of age, the banjo-accompanied How Old Is 75? is pretty much summed up in the title, and the reflection on you never know when your time is up (“Mom made it to 74/Though we all thought she’d get a bit more…And my Dad, he kicked at 62/Way too young, but then what can you do?”) because “There is no pre-nup/Type agreement between God and you”, you just get on with it “In the hope some of it made some sense”. because “What gets done is what counts”. Typically, it ends with a bittersweet image of loss as he sings about throwing a party “But I know some of you won’t be there/I suppose you could be anywhere/In the ether or soil/Free from sorrow and toil/You’ll be missed but you won’t really care anymore”.
Inspired by his purchasing a lawnmower during lockdown, it ends with the vaudeville-like ukulele-led Fun & Free, a resolution not to be in thrall to anyone (“Mowing my grass, I’m my own boss now and I’m doing it for fun and free”) and enjoy whatever time is left as, reaching the age when “you can keep your approval and your damn money”, he concludes “Just how long can this go on? I can’t say I wish I knew/But I’ll say this – hear what I say – spend life like it’s a spree/‘Cause it’s one and done – that’s it son – so do it for fun and free”. He says that once an album is done and dusted, he can’t stand to hear it anymore. That’s unlikely to be something you’ll experience with this wonderfully Wainwright delight.