Loudon Wainwright III Quotes

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

  Loudon Wainwright III

  Happiness, War, Difficult

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Writing, Careers, Growing

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Thinking, Bob, Firsts

  7 Copy quote

• 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

  Talking, Singing, Hills

  5 Copy quote

• 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

  16 Copy quote

• Why kill good people just to get a bad man?

  Loudon Wainwright III

  Men, People, Politics

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Done, Records

  4 Copy quote

• 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, School, Boys

  "Geoff Muldaur Takes Texas Sheiks On The Road". "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, www.npr.org. December 7, 2009.

  4 Copy quote

• Doomsday is quite within our reach, if we will only stretch for it.

  Loudon Wainwright III

  Future, Doomsday, Ifs

  7 Copy quote

• 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

  Song, Wine, Thinking

  6 Copy quote

• 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, School, Kids

  Interview with Sam Adams, www.avclub.com. January 21, 2010.

  10 Copy quote

• 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

  Eerie, Old Habits, Next

  6 Copy quote

• 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

  Father, Ideas, Different

  7 Copy quote

• 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

  Song, Writing, Answers

  7 Copy quote

• 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

  Song, Couple, Writing

  Interview with Sam Adams, www.avclub.com. January 21, 2010.

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  School, Rocks, Rock And Roll

  "A 'Handsome' Tribute From Loudon Wainwright". "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, www.npr.org. August 19, 2009.

  16 Copy quote

• 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

  Dog, Song, Father

  Source: www.avclub.com

  4 Copy quote

• My feeling is that, and I've been writing about my family over the years, although it might make them feel uncomfortable, people generally like to be written about. If I've written a song about the family, they enjoy being mentioned in the songs. Nobody's confronted me and said 'don't write any songs about me.

  Loudon Wainwright III

  Song, Writing, Years

  4 Copy quote

• I studied acting and there's certainly an element of performance. I think that the songs are in many ways written to be performed. I think about what it's going to be like to sing them on stage rather than what it's going to be like to have someone at home listening to them on a CD. I guess in that way there's a connection between my acting experience and the songwriting and the way the songs are written.

  Loudon Wainwright III

  Song, Home, Thinking

  4 Copy quote

• In a way, the songs are written to be performed. I put them on records, but I'm always thinking about how an audience would react to it. I realized at age 7 that I wanted to be a performer, and I used to do that, and occasionally I'll get an acting job. I don't really make much of a living as an actor, but it's fun to do it when I get a job.

  Loudon Wainwright III

  Song, Fun, Thinking

  Source: www.avclub.com

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Song, Writing, School

  Source: www.avclub.com

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Song, Husband, Father

  Source: www.avclub.com

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Mother, Father, Parent

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Song, Sex, Block

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Writing, Thinking, Stuff

  Interview with Sam Adams, www.avclub.com. January 21, 2010.

  4 Copy quote

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