My father writings stuff was always his personal stuff, like about the day we had to put our dog down, or finding old photographs of his father, or passing a guy he went to boarding school with on a street in New York. Very specific, detailed, descriptive columns that he wrote. I think in a way, it could be argued that my best songs are that way too. They're almost journalistic in that they're very clear, and very specific, and they describe things.

Loudon Wainwright III

Categorized in : Father Song Dog

I think I'm the oldest new Bob Dylan around. I predate Bruce Springsteen, Steve Forbat and John Prine. I was probably the first of the new Bob Dylans.

Loudon Wainwright III

bob firsts thinking

Geoff Muldaur was and is one of my musical heroes. When I listen to him sing and play, I can hear the coal mine, the cotton field, and last, but certainly foremost, the boy's boarding school.

Loudon Wainwright III

hero boys school

After a war, after a concentration camp, I find it's not too difficult to be happy.

Loudon Wainwright III

difficult happiness war

I always wanted to be an actor, even as a little kid. So I went to drama school in the late '60s at Carnegie Mellon.

Loudon Wainwright III

drama kids school

If I had five minutes to live, I don't think I'd be bothered singing a song. I'd be dead, so it won't really matter. I'd have a glass of wine and a cigarette.

Loudon Wainwright III

wine song thinking

Displaying a bland, even an eerie, disregard for what appeared to be the facts of the situation, he fell back on an old habit of looking ahead to the next defeat.

Loudon Wainwright III

old-habits next eerie

You just do the best you can. It doesn't necessarily mean that you have to get worse the more you do it. It can get better, I think... aspects of it, anyway. I mean, I don't write as much as I used to. But I don't do a lot of things as much as I used to. So that's the natural order of things, too. You're more or less living in the present. You're just trying to get that next song, whatever it is. And not think too much about what happened on the last record, or the record you made 20 years ago, because those are over with. Those are done.

Loudon Wainwright III

writing song mean

I hated the idea that I would be like my father. Which is one of the reasons I decided I didn't want to be a writer and wanted to be an actor instead. I wanted to go in a total different direction. But, of course, I ended up being a writer anyway.

Loudon Wainwright III

different father ideas

It's hard for the modern generation to understand Thoreau, who lived beside a pond but didn't own water skis or a snorkel.

Loudon Wainwright III

nature fun water

I'm always asked if the songs that I write are therapeutic, and my answer is a quick no. In fact, it could be argued that they exacerbate my neurosis.

Loudon Wainwright III

answers writing song

I'm writing about what's happening to me now. I mean, I had a hip replacement a couple of years ago. I have a song about that. And why wouldn't you? It strikes me that that was a huge event. It's kind of funny and horrible and interesting, so why wouldn't one write about that?

Loudon Wainwright III

couple writing song

My music comes from country music. Merle Haggard is God, and I do believe that. I'm not too tuned in to country music. I don't know who Brooks and Dunn are. I like Shania Twain, though!

Loudon Wainwright III

brooks believe country

I have travelled and been pretty much a one man operation for most of my career, and I think it'll continue to be that way.

Loudon Wainwright III

careers men thinking

It's nice when people say, 'God, I've been listening to you since 1963 or 1985, or whatever.' I appreciate anybody who goes out and buys music these days.

Loudon Wainwright III

appreciate nice people

Right away, I knew I didn't want to have that look of other guys with long hair and bell-bottom pants, because everybody else had that look. I kind of adopted my boarding-school look, which made me stand out. Then the next thing you know, the first song on my first record is a song called "School Days." It's about going to the boarding school I went to. So then I just started to write about myself. The very first song I ever wrote was about a guy I met in a boatyard that we were working in. So I've always had this thing about sticking to more or less what I knew.

Loudon Wainwright III

writing song school

I love failure. It's stuff that I'm thinking about all the time in my life, so it would make sense to me anyway to write about it.

Loudon Wainwright III

stuff writing thinking

I've never really suffered complete and utter writer's block, really. I equate it with sex: in the beginning of my career, I was writing five songs a week; now, I occasionally write a song. But it's an exciting moment when it happens!

Loudon Wainwright III

block song sex

When my mother died, and when my father died, it's big. Our parents are giants; they're titans of our lives, so of course it's going to be a big deal.

Loudon Wainwright III

parent mother father

I have a song called "Men." I mean, manhood and trying to be one, and failing as one, and trying to be a husband and a father, and failing at that. I love failure. It's stuff that I'm thinking about all the time in my life, so it would make sense to me anyway to write about it.

Loudon Wainwright III

husband song father

I wasn't in a lot of rock and roll bands. I was in jug bands and things when I was in school.

Loudon Wainwright III

rock-and-roll rocks school