Loudon Wainwright III quotes

I was a smoker for years. Occasionally I slip and have a cigarette. Remarkably, my voice has held up. I'm grateful, obviously. But I don't gargle with honey and ground-up bird eggs. I have no secrets. (Loudon Wainwright III)

When you have a song on the radio your career and your life changes maybe for the better and maybe for the not so good... depending on how it's going that day.

Loudon Wainwright III

When you make a record, you listen to it literally hundreds of times. When it's done and you can't do anything else, I never listen to my records.

Loudon Wainwright III

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

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

As it turns out, three of my four kids are professional singers. And they're really interesting, good singers.

Loudon Wainwright III

I don't claim to be a particularly good father. I'm flawed, let's say. I've certainly been affected by the experience of having kids... trying to be a father, at least. It's an amazing process. It's like songwriting: it's a complete mystery to me. I don't understand it - but I've certainly written about it.

Loudon Wainwright III

When you start performing, you realize that you have to separate yourself from the pack. So I would never wear bell-bottoms, which everybody else was wearing. I had short hair - and to see a 21-year-old guy walk onstage without longish hair was, in itself, weird. Every entertainer needs a shtick.

Loudon Wainwright III

Family life is tough, I'll say that for it. But in my case, I've mined the family. In a sense, I've used it. I've used what happened - the different events, the births of children, birthdays. Connecting, not connecting. Regret, shame, guilt. I mean, they're all in the songs. And love, too, I hasten to add.

Loudon Wainwright III

I don't think of myself as a folk singer per se, but I really like blues and string-band music. When I started listening to records when I was a teenager, the folk boom was going on.

Loudon Wainwright III

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)

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

I've been writing about growing old for some time, really from the beginning of my career. It's something I'm apparently hung up about and now that I am old, hopefully I speak about it with some authority.

Loudon Wainwright III

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

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

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

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

If you're 28 and singing about being over the hill, you're pretending. When you're 67 and singing about it, you know what you're talking about.

Loudon Wainwright III

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

And it's the same when there's a war on: it's the men who go to fight Women and children are civilians, when they're killed it's not right Men kill men in uniform, its the way war goes When they run they're cowards, when they stay they are heroes.

Loudon Wainwright III

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)

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

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