Attempted Mustache

by

Loudon Wainwright III

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After hitting it big with "Dead Skunk", somebody got the bright idea that Loudon could be a "hit machine". This would lead to disaster over the course of the next three albums, and on this album it's not hard to see why.

"A.M. World", "Clockwork Chartreuse" and "Nocturnal Stumblebutt" are hammered to incomprehensibility with heavy-handed production values. Loudon acknowledged this himself with his later live album, "A Live One" where he sings and plays "Clockwork" and "Stumblebutt" solo. (You can also get a cleaner version of "A.M. World" from the BBC album.)

And yet. Despite this. Well, this is an album of "Fabulous Songs". "The Swimming Song" must be Loudon's most covered song; and the man-in-black himself (Johnny Cash) covered "The Man Who Couldn't Cry". And "I Am The Way" has been in the news over the past few years because it was plagiarized by an English songwriter. (The song itself is a direct lift of a Woody Guthrie song; his estate did the suing.)

Even the "throwaways" on this album are '70s Loudon at his rakish best: "Bell Bottom Pants" (which can be sung again, these days) and "Down Drinking At The Bar" (though "A Live One", again, has the better version) are fun, though apparently not enough to capture the ears of a nation expecting another "Dead Skunk".

His collaborations with then wife Kate McGarrigle are extremely enjoyable, with the production of "Come A Long Way" being among the best on the album and "Dilated To Meet You" capturing =perfectly= the emotions and fatigue that only expectant parents in the last hours of pregnancy can feel.

The last song is possibly my favorite lullaby ever, being exhortations to "shut up and go to bed", in a variety of ways. In the liner notes, Loudon confesses that it's himself he's talking to, making this a sort of insomniac's lullaby.

It's an overall good album marred by some dubious production choices. And it would be a while before Loudon produced another this solid. (The jokey "Unrequited" was next, followed by the now-extinct "Final Exam" and "T-Shirt", followed by a lot of moving from label-to-label.)

Full disclosure: I was introduced to Wainwright when I heard "The Swimming Song" on a mixtape. I bought this album shortly thereafter, and I haven't investigated him since. So this review is for folks who are coming to this album from a similar context, not fans who are already sold on Wainwright's style.

Anyhow -- "Swimming Song" is fantastic. The banjo-plucking is top-notch, the melody is an instant winner, and the lyrics swerve between funny and depressing. And none of the other songs on here are as good, although about half of them come close.

Understandable, since the music walks a line between ragged-but-right and just plain ragged. Think Mulswell Hillbillies-era Kinks or The Band, but a bit sloppier than either. Unfortunately, Wainwright's clever lyrics are done a disservice when the music gets too loose, as it does on "I am the Way" and a couple of other tracks.

I can understand someone finding the unpolished sound charming, a nice dose of variety. But to my ears, Attempted Mustache doesn't mix poetic lyrics and boisterous folk-rock as convincingly as the best albums by Dylan, Cohen, or Waylon.