ALBUM: Loudon Wainwright III, ‘The Atlantic Recordings’
These days, Loudon Wainwright III is probably best known as the patriarch of the musical Wainwright clan (including Martha and Rufus Wainwright), an actor (M*A*S*H, Knocked Up), and the guy behind the 1972 novelty hit “Dead Skunk.” For nearly half a century, however, Wainwright has himself been a singer, songwriter, and musician whose repertoire runs the gamut from wry goofs to painfully intimate autobiographies.
Wainwright celebrated his 70th birthday last week, making it a fitting time to revisit the very beginning of his career. His first two albums, 1970’s Loudon Wainwright III and 1971’s Album II, have been recently compiled and re-released by Real Gone Music under the title The Atlantic Recordings, inviting rediscovery of an often overlooked part of his career.
Like many singer-songwriters of his generation, Wainwright was initially framed as a new Bob Dylan. Indeed, both men’s early albums are minimally produced, consisting almost solely of an acoustic guitar accompanied by a (some may say) whiny voice. One glance at the cover of Loudon Wainwright III, however — featuring the musician’s Brooks Brothers blazer, bored stare, and undeniably WASP-ish name — immediately establishes him as a world apart from the reams of genial hippies and authenticity-starved folkies slapped with the “next Dylan” label.
Wainwright seems less of a voice of a generation, and more like a prep-school boy gone to seed. Rather than crafting a Dylanesque sense of mystery around himself, he seems dead set on exposing his faults and cracking weird jokes. Wainwright’s guitar style isn’t mystically channeled from old-time country or obscure blind bluesmen; it’s the rough-hewn sound of a busker thrashing to be heard over an uncaring crowd, or, conversely, the cramped hush of a downtown insomniac with thin apartment walls.
Wainwright’s pointedly specific songwriting on The Atlantic Recordings also counters the allegorical or self-consciously poetic style of many of Dylan’s followers. “School Days,” the opening track on Loudon Wainwright III, explicitly mentions his alma mater, St. Andrew’s School in Delaware, while reflecting on the world-beating confidence of a privileged youth (“I was Buddha / I was Christ”).
On “Movies Are a Mother to Me,” Wainwright details the soothing effect cinema has on his sanity, dropping his own name in the last line. The obtuse “Four is a Magic Number” seems designed to be impenetrable to anyone besides Wainwright, but the key is in the final refrain: “every time I sit you down / to tell you what is true / for safety’s sake, remember please / I would shut up if I knew.”
The rest of the album largely consists of observational material: a love story about sidewalk drunkards (“Central Square Song”), a somber portrait of a dying old woman (“Hospital Lady”), a snapshot of the freaks and regulars at a downtown diner (“Bruno’s Place”), and an ode to a street musician (“Black Uncle Remus”). Even the less personal songs on the album, however, are packed with names, addresses, dialogue, and memorable incidents that not only feel true-to-life, but capture a specific rawness of city life that now mostly exists in isolated, quickly vanishing pockets.
This urban character is most explicit on the sardonic “Ode to a Pittsburgh” (“Pennsylvania’s western daughter / with your tubes of liberty”) and the NYC travelogue “Uptown,” which mocks the mainstream pastimes of the above-14th-Street set, while also genuinely yearning to escape hip-but-dilapidated downtown for a romantic day of “see[ing] how the other half lives.”
However, it’s “I Don’t Care” and “Glad to See You’ve Got Religion” — in which Wainwright’s seething indifference is more caustic than an explicit insult — that best hint at the direction of his next LP, 1971’s Album II. “Old Friend” and “Saw Your Name in the Paper” continue the sardonic put-downs, but there’s now a vague air of self-awareness, in which Wainwright recognizes himself as at least as pathetic as the targets of his vitriol. In fact, the latter song could be interpreted as regarding his own insecurity about fame — and, indeed, Album II probes more intimate, uncomfortable emotions than its predecessor.
Sometimes, the bleakness is cloaked in self-effacing humor, such as the black-comic suite “I Know I’m Unhappy”/“Suicide Song”/ “Glenville Reel,” which acknowledges depression but castigates its self-pitying nature (“when you get the blues and you wanna shoot yourself in the head / it’s all right, it’s all right / go ahead”). At the other end of the spectrum is the brutally honest “Motel Blues,” in which Wainwright staves off loneliness by begging a young fan to spend the night with him (“I’ll buy you breakfast / they’ll think you’re my wife”).
While Album II may trod more desperate ground than his debut, it’s also where Wainwright’s off-beat sense of humor comes to the fore. He describes a Protestant’s infatuation with the chosen people on “Nice Jewish Girls,” details a supposedly extraordinary evening with “Me and My Friend the Cat,” and spins a yarn about a prison-bound hippie whose primary concern is the mandatory haircut and shave (“Samson and the Warden”).
“Plane, Too” stretches his earlier observational style to intentionally absurd lengths, minutely detailing every visible item on a flight (“airplane food was on the plane / airplane coffee too”). The most peculiar inclusion, however, is the appearance of cowboy classic “Old Paint” amidst Wainwright’s decidedly modern urban milieu. It’s also the only track on either album that features outside musicians: folk singer Saul Broudy on harmonica, and Wainwright’s then-wife Kate McGarrigle on harmony vocals.
Album II closes with “Winter Song,” a fitting bookend to “School Days.” Rather than its predecessor’s backwards glance, “Winter Song” establishes the futility of looking forward: “one weary day this winter will be gone / don’t be fooled, it won’t be gone for good / it will be back to freeze next year’s moustache / blow and snow as every winter should.” The Atlantic Recordings adds a bonus track, a version of “Drinking Song” originally intended for Album II. Instead, it was re-recorded for Wainwright’s next LP, 1972’s Album III, after he jumped from Atlantic to Columbia Records.
It wasn’t just his label that had changed, however. The cover art for Album III is a close-up of Wainwright’s bearded, smiling face in full color, a far remove from his sullen stares from harsh black-and-white photos on the Atlantic sleeves. But while Album III boasted a full band on many tracks and a slightly more commercial sound, the fact that “Dead Skunk” became his big hit proves Wainwright’s idiosyncratic sense of humor remained just as essential as it was when it was established on his Atlantic recordings.
Loudon Waignwright III’s The Atlantic Years is now available from the Real Gone Music shop.
