Loudon Wainwright III – Attempted Mustache

The unexpected success of Loudon Wainwright III’s 1972 bluegrassy novelty tune, “Dead Skunk”, put unwanted pressure on the singer. And, as Wainwright says in the liner notes to the recent reissue of his first post-Skunk album, his attempt to capitalize on the popularity of his hit didn’t quite make it. “Attempted Mustache bombed with the critics and John Q. Buying Public,” Wainwright writes. “This made me much more comfortable.”

Mustache, recorded in five days in Nashville, indeed was a flawed album, marred by the quickie production and too many throwaway funny-bone songs. However, some of the best early Wainwright songs are on this one, including “The Swimming Song” (featuring a Skunky banjo and Doug Kershaw’s Cajun fiddle and holler), “Down Drinking At The Bar”, “The Man Who Couldn’t Cry” (later covered by Johnny Cash), and “Lullaby”, in which an exhausted dad tells his newborn son (or, if you believe Wainwright’s notes, tells himself) “Shut up and go to bed.” Another treat on Attempted Mustache is “Come A Long Way”, a sweet acoustic song written by Wainwright’s then-wife, Kate McGarrigle.

By the time his next album, Unrequited, came out, Columbia was ready to drop him, his marriage was falling apart, and he was about to split with his longtime manager. In spite of, or more likely, because of those tensions, Wainwright created one of the finest records of his career. The emotional core of the half-studio/half-live Unrequited were the ones dealing directly and indirectly with his domestic discord.

“On The Rocks”, “Whatever Happened To Us”, “Mr. Guilty”, “Absence Makes The Heart Grow Fonder” (with heartbreaking harmonies by Kate and Anna McGarrigle), and the wah-wah rocker “Sweet Nothings” tell the tale of a love gone sour. There are even a couple of tunes mixing love and death fantasies: the hilarious “Unrequited To The Nth Degree” and the truly creepy “Crime Of Passion”. The most raw and direct song on the album is “Kick In The Head”, which is about a husband coping with his wife’s infidelity. “Now you have found out that the thing they call trust is cut-rate/And now you hate the two of them more than you knew you could hate.”

On Unrequited, even Wainwright’s silly songs are way above average. The faux-reggae of “The Lowly Tourist”, the New Age cult-spoof “Guru” and the breast-feeding ode “Rufus Is A Tit Man” (named for his son, who’s now a budding singer-songwriter in his own right) are good funny songs. Now if only Atlantic would re-release Loudon’s first two records.