Zitat des Tages von Loudon Wainwright III:
The big things in the average person's life are the romances that they have - and then the destruction and loss of them. Parents, siblings, children, the death of parents, family tension... these are monumental things. They struck me as being interesting to write about. I didn't have a very exotic life, but all this stuff happened to me.
I know that people don't listen to music much in the way when they'll put on a CD, sit down, have a drink or go on a car journey. People pick and choose and just listen to tracks. But when I make a record, I try to think about it as a 50 minute musical journey, so the mood is very important, as is the sequence of the songs.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
I don't write about anything I don't want to write about. I like to think I could write about anything pretty much that I chose to. I have been asked to write songs about specific things, and I've always been able to come up with the goods.
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.
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.
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.
As it turns out, three of my four kids are professional singers. And they're really interesting, good singers.
