Loudon Wainwright IIIHugh’s Room, Toronto
November 30, 2008
by Live Music Head
The first of two sold out shows at Hugh’s Room
has me exiting seven o’clock rain and wind
and entering a full house of clinking glasses, beer and gin.
Surveying tonight’s audience from a sweet table, candle-lit,
the waiter is warm with red wine and thanks
for the ginger carrot soup, soaking up the bread basket.
With a perfect view of the stage
where my eyes now fall,
Jerry Silverberg is the artist gracing the south wall.
On a single microphone stand, bar stool and piano
Loudon Wainwright the Third is the songwriter we’re here to see;
the singer songwriter who means so much to me.
With many songs about dysfunctional relationships and shit,
I easily indentify with the unhappy love and bitterness.
Van Dyke Parks says …
“Loudon Wainwright is one of a kind
and he should be allowed to coast”.
Arriving at the top of the ladies room stairs,
I spy waist-leather jacket and rain-splattered hair.
In red-rimmed glasses, coming through the front door,
wearing a smile ear to ear, I’m excited to the core.
A guitar slung over his back under a stylish grey hat, I say
“Hey, Mr. Wainwright, welcome back!”
Despite a wealth of great material
in a career spanning four decades and still going strong,
Loudon Wainwright the Third at the age of sixty two
can’t seem to shake hitting that Dead Skunk back in '72.
With an acting career start as Captain Spaulding,
the singing surgeon in the hit television series M*A*S*H,
Loudon Wainwright moved to Los Angeles a short while back.
Recently a Knocked Up gynecologist he did play,
with dreams in Hollywood he craves.
But it’s this writer’s opinion
the songwriting talents of Loudon Wainwright the Third
are like fine wines;
tasting better and better with the passage of time.
The applause rises when through the crowd he comes
and a brand new Martin he does strum.
Due to an unfortunate Durango incident with an airport bitch,
the familiar booming voice fills the entire room, with a kick...
“I wonder why you love me, baby
I hardly love myself at all
I think we're both a little crazy
We need some therapy that's all”
With a left leg lift and a twirling tongue,
“I'm full of fear and paranoia
You are hysterical and sad
Let's do it, babe, you know I love you
It costs so much, it can't be bad”
There are many Wainwright songs that are meaningful to me,
but only one of them is Therapy.
My lower lip trembles only three songs in
when the one that hits the hardest mark
comes with the older, and dead kin...
“I’ve seen the family photos
And the man’s a mystery
He died in 1942, at the age of 43
My grandmother was his widow
And my father was his son
Oh, but I know next to nothing
of the first Loudon”
The third Wainwright sings a lot about his family
from a song about son Rufus being a tit man
to hitting daughter Martha hard in the back seat.
Wainwright is a confessional songwriter, brutally honest
and for this reason I hold him in my heart, the fondest.
But he can’t piss off someone he’s never met, can he?
Because the first was a son of a bitch, apparently...
“who liked to smoke and drink
In the photos he looks handsome
trapped is what I think.
And there’s one of him in uniform
It must be World War 1
They say he was an expert sailor
and could handle a shotgun”.
I’m sure many of us have searched the faces
of our own family photo albums in fights;
dead pictures will conjure in our heads,
an old movie, black and white...
“In the wedding portrait
posing with his young bride
his right hand hidden by her bouquet
his left hanging at his side
Closed in a kind of half fist
I’m sure that he just done
facing his short future
like he could hit someone"
With total control of his guitar, he plays
scrunched up facial expressions are displayed.
As each line is heartfelt and powerfully delivered,
hanging off every word
I’m goose bumped and I shiver...
“Yes I know a little something
about the first Loudon
My grandmother was his widow
and my father was his son
Tell me, what are we afraid of?
Why do we resist?
I spread my hands and flex my fingers
open and close my fist”
With a shiny gold ring bouncing off stage lights,
fingers strum across guitar strings
and Half Fist is my biggest highlight of the night.
The songwriter comes armed with seasonal fear
but be that as it may,
you can hear a feather drop for Thanksgiving on this day.
Before, “Suddenly it's Christmas, the longest holiday
the season is upon us
a pox, it won't go away;
It's a season, it's a marathon,
retail eternity
and it's not over till it's over
and you throw away the tree”
Apologies are offered for the saliva spree
hitting the girls at the table front row center, and free.
But hey look, from a left breast pocket he pulls out a Sharpie...
“And with this, you get to meet me
After the show… but remember, briefly!”
As the bartender hands him a tumbler of whiskey,
But no, that’s something you shouldn’t do...
“Mother liked her white wine,
she'd have a glass or three
We'd sit out on the screen porch
white winos, mom and me
We'd talk about her childhood
and recap my career
When we got to my father
that's when I'd switch to beer”
From the deeply personal record
Last Man on Earth,
this work followed the days after his mother’s death;
an emotional record that still causes me to fret.
Hugh’s Room must be shaken with White Winos
because Loudon Wainwright played it perfect.
And there’s much more to drink about Wainwright...
“Be he broke bum or rich rake, his dinner be it bread or cake
His beverage be the worse of whiskey, finest wine.
Puke it stinks, and so it seems
that drunkards go to great extremes,
but there has yet to be a perfectly straight line”
Between a Red Guitar and Another in “C”,
he sits on a piano bench where all the sad songs flee,
pulling from inside a small case
a ukulele.
Mister Wainwright with his legendary wit
was asked to write Lucky You for a play
based on a book by Carl Hiaasen.
But no longer does a lonely rock and roller plead…
“come up to my motel room, sleep with me”
Because in 2008 instead he sighs,
“come up to my motel room, show me how to use the wi-fi”
Knowing it’s time for the encore, we all scream for more,
but Motel Blues from Album II remains my highlight number four.
“This summer I swam in the ocean;
I swam in a swimming pool.
Salt my wounds, chlorine my eyes
I'm a self-destructive fool, a self-destructive fool”
The entire room claps along, not shy,
but the next one becomes highlight number five...
“Living on the side of Primrose Hill,
drinking cans of Tennants
just can't seem to get my fill.
Got a beat up guitar
and a dirty old sleeping bag
and this mangy dog
whose tail don't wag”.
From the not so great Little Ship,
Primrose Hill is a big hit.
“Now I know I have a reputation for being sarcastic;
some say, I’m even a little negative”.
Hearing him say this, we all crack up,
“but a journalist recently called me moribund
and I had to look that one up”.
So in the spirit of hope,
Loudon Wainwright gives up the fight
because It’s Not the End of the World
(merely the middle of the night).
Next in line for the after-Sharpie promised,
I extend my arm out for a shake and a grin
when a look of recognition says,
“nice to meet you, again”.
Loudon Wainwright the third remembers me.
Could it be possible he recalls I followed him three?
In the snow from Buffalo twice to here
at the very same time, at the Tralf last year?
My inspirational Top 5 includes a hot cock rocker I know,
but Loudon Wainwright also tops my list of those;
on-line dating and the Sex and the City girls of HBO
as being the most influential at raising my own potential.
With the confidence I gain from them, I just may cope
through my mid-life crisis, with a little less mope.
When the camera is ready, instead of saying “cheese”
some guy asks, “Who is she?”
To me, the most important songwriter I know
Mr Wainwright replies, “she’s from Toronto”.
Being one who falls back on old memory,
I still don’t have a copy of Recovery.
After autographing a few gems from my collection,
I finally bought the new record from Loudon directly.
A call from the green room ascends his quick flight
as we send our best wishes and bid him goodnight.
I’ll listen to Recovery for the first time at sunrise
and be back here at Hugh’s Room for round two
again, tomorrow night.
Lisa McDonald
December 2008
Set List – Sun Nov 30, 2008
Therapy
Cheatin’
Half Fist
Thanksgiving
A Santa/Jesus rap
Suddenly, It’s Christmas
New Paint
Be Careful There’s A Baby in The House
The Days That We Die
The Drinking Song
Out of Reach
Red Guitar
Another Song in “C”
Susie (the Durango incident)
Lucky You
White Winos
Didn’t It Ramble
Motel Blues
E: The Swimming Song
Primrose Hill
It’s Not the End of the World (merely the middle of the night)
White Winos
http://mx.youtube.com/watch?v=PVzRZpiLCjw
Motel Blues
http://mx.youtube.com/watch?v=BKqZZg2U6t4
http://www.lwiii.com/
http://www.hughsroom.com/
http://www.carlhiaasen.com/
