Loudon Wainwright III has always been an odd bird. As
a singer-songwriter, he's well aware of folk music traditions and incorporates
them into his music. Yet he never pretends to be someone he's not.
He's never been a hard travelin' hobo or rough and tumble laborer. He
comes from an upper class New England family and he sings about what he
knows. He also has a quirky and sometimes dark sense of humor. All
of this adds up to a recipe for a cult artist and Wainwright certainly could be
classified as such. But as occasionally happens with cult artists, some
scrap of their weird sensibility connects with the mainstream. That
happened to Wainwright in 1972 when his oddball single "Dead Skunk"
suddenly became a hit. How would he follow that up? By doing what
he damn well pleases, of course, which brings us to 1973's
Attempted
Mustache.
The album opens with a fantastic folk/pop confection called "The
Swimming Song." Wainwright himself plucks a banjo throughout and
Cajun fiddler Doug Kershaw pops in at the end. The lyrics are either
incredibly silly or strikingly poignant depending on your point of view.
"A.M. World" takes a sardonic view of his recently acquired
fame. Wainwright goes back to his childhood for the brief a cappella tune
"Liza," a reminiscence about an old playmate who just happened to
grow up to be Liza Minnelli. "I Am the Way" is recorded live
and displays Wainwright's penchant for iconoclasm. He takes the tune of
Woody Guthrie's "New York Town" and sings from the perspective of a
sacrilegious Jesus, giving a gentle ribbing to two revered legends. Folk
singers could rock too and Wainwright certainly does on "Clockwork
Chartreuse." This song contains one of his most controversial lyrics
as it sarcastically takes the view of a violent misogynist. Some have
claimed the song to be an endorsement of such behavior. Those who
understand satire know otherwise.
For "Down Drinking at the Bar" Wainwright gets rowdy and bluesy on an
ode to exactly what the title promises. Next comes the album's
centerpiece, the dark acoustic song "The Man Who Couldn't Cry."
It's a vivid and poetic tale of a misunderstood outcast and has become one of
Wainwright's best known songs, partially thank to Johnny Cash's excellent cover
version. But the original is a powerful classic of its own. At the
time, Wainwright had just married Kate McGarrigle, another up and coming
folksinger, and here he presents a gorgeous version of her song "Come a
Long Way." "Nocturnal Stumblebutt" is another rocker, this
one is about waking up in the middle of the night to try and find a
cigarette. The Wainwright home life is again referenced in "Dilated
to Meet You," an ode to Loudon and Kate's newborn son Rufus who himself
would grow up to be an acclaimed singer and performer. The album
concludes with "Lullaby." Of course, Wainwright's idea of a
lullaby opens with the line "Shut up and go to bed." He
references Rufus in the lyrics but in the album's liner notes explains that
he's really singing to himself. Loudon Wainwright III has made a career
of always being slightly out of step. For those attuned to his way of
thinking, Attempted Mustache provides plenty of great tunes and odd
turns.
- Adam
Reshotko
After Leonard Cohen died
in November, I re-watched the documentary, Leonard Cohen: I’m Your Man.
This 2005 film combines performances from two tribute concerts and interviews
with artists participating in the events as well as with Leonard Cohen himself.
Rufus Wainwright stands out performing alongside his sister, Martha Wainwright,
and his mother and aunt, Kate and Anna McGarrigle, among artists including Beth
Orton, Nick Cave, and Jarvis Cocker. Rufus Wainwright contributes compelling,
singular takes on the Cohen classics “Everybody Knows,” “Hallelujah,” and
“Chelsea Hotel No. 2” on stage while sharing charming stories of his personal
relationship with one of his idols in interviews. Watching the film again, I
reflected on Rufus Wainwright’s deep, passionate, and personal connection to
the craft of songwriting. Wainwright’s third album, Want One, released
just two years prior to this film, captures him at his creative peak and
delivers his defining artistic statement.
The son of folk music
stars Kate McGarrigle and Loudon Wainwright III, Rufus Wainwright drew from his
parents’ talents but set off in a direction beyond the boundaries of folk
music. Wainwright’s performances in Leonard Cohen: I’m Your Man yield a
representative impression of his abilities by ranging from knowing and playful
to soaring and anthemic to heartfelt and wistful. The fourteen songs on Want
One cover very similar territory, but allow Wainwright to delve into the
fearless, stylistic voraciousness that has come to define him as an artist. “Oh
What a World” opens the album with a distant, hummed melody before blossoming
into a sprawling rumination on modern life that quotes Ravel’s Boléro as
it climaxes. Up next, “I Don’t Know What It Is” settles into a more restrained
mode of pop maximalism while Wainwright considers the necessity of exploring
the unknown. Supported by minimalist orchestral accompaniment on “Vibrate,”
Wainwright delights in pitching modern anachronisms like “my phone’s on vibrate
for you” and “I tried to dance to Britney Spears” against the staid, classical
backdrop. The next song, “14th Street,” launches into a full-throated ballad
that begs the question, “But why’d you have to break all my heart / Couldn’t
you have saved a little bit of it?” This show stopper supplies Want One’s
centerpiece while functioning as a family reunion with Martha Wainwright
singing backing vocals on the charging chorus and Kate McGarrigle contributing
the song’s plaintive banjo outro. “11:11,” begins with a hushed mandolin figure
and unfolds into a bracing tempo as Wainwright takes stock of the world he
finds upon waking up late one morning; it endures as the album’s catchiest,
most appealing moment. “Dinner at Eight” closes out the album on an emotionally
resonant note as Wainwright grapples with the aching, confounding conflict at
the core of a doomed love while his tender piano playing expands into ornate
swells of strings.
A year after Want One,
Wainwright followed up with another release from the same sessions, Want Two,
and although it contained the wonderfully overblown nine-minute romp, “Old
Whore’s Diet,” it lacked the cohesion, quality, and vision of its predecessor.
Over the last several years, Wainwright’s adventurousness has taken him in a
number of directions including a song-for-song tribute to Judy Garland’s 1961
album, Judy at Carnegie Hall, and last year’s Take All My Loves: 9
Shakespeare Sonnets. With Want One, Wainwright composed a lasting
testament to his extraordinary, idiosyncratic love of songwriting and
performance and earned himself a place alongside his teachers and heroes. 
