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want to do your whole life? Sing and dance?’ And I went… ’Well, yeah, probably.’ So I went to theatre school and thought I’d be a great actress but that turned out to be too hard to be good at so I started writing songs.”
There were times, she admits, when she regarded the family name and the expectations that go with it as something of a curse.
“I did feel that way as a young person. I thought it was a terri- ble, terrible cross to bear. Not that I didn’t like singing with the fami- ly, because it was fun and moving and I was Rufus’s back-up singer for many years and that was a whirlwind and he taught me a great deal and it was a great opportunity. But at the time I felt I had no chance of being noticed because I was in a group taking a back seat and everyone had a lot to say. So I thought maybe if I weren’t Rufus’s sister or my parents’ daughter then maybe people would think I was quite good, but because of who I am then they’d expect it. Another Wainwright, oh there you go. But I’ve since gotten over that. I was probably just feeling sorry for myself.”
Were you quite angry?
“Oh yeah, sure. But I don’t think more than anyone else. I know my songs seem angry, especially for some girls – I say, girls because I was in my late teens and twenties when I started writing songs and instead of playing quiet, feminine music, I had this aggressive sound and a very nasally voice. But it made me feel really good saying the things I was saying in songs, so I was actually quite happy.”
M
ost memorably she caused some shock and no little outrage with what we will call her ‘asshole’ song, a beautiful tirade of frustration and vitriol aimed squarely at her father, Loudon Wainwright III. Given that he’d spent half of his career writing tormented
songs about members of the family, with lots of dirty linen washed in public, it was only fair.
“For me it was funny. It just came out. I didn’t intend to write a song with swear words in it. But all the emotions inspired what came out and I thought it was poetic!”
Did it get you into trouble? “Of course it did! I should never have told anyone it was about Loudon because then people really ran with it. But thinking back, most people in their twenties are mad at their parents so I don’t think it was a particularly strange emotion. What was strange, perhaps, was to say it in such an aggressive way.”
She’s inherited Loudon’s penchant for vivid and colourful tales
of family, along with his facial expressions and involuntary legwork while singing. In the words of one of his songs that features on Songs In The Dark, it runs in the family…
“My parents are my biggest influence and I appreciate that in lots of respects, but I’ve written a lot of songs about my family life and my husband that have gotten me into a lot of trouble. I always think it’s worth it at the time and then maybe not so much after- wards. I’m learning my lesson… but very slowly.”
Are you talking to Loudon at the moment?
“Oh absolutely. It’s all water under the bridge. The point of it is that all these songs he’s written and I’ve written too, they very quick- ly stop being about us and become what people want them to be about and their own families or the people that they hate.”
At that moment there’s a kerfuffle at the door, bags fly in and there she is… fresh from a snowbound New York, Lucy Wainwright Roche. The show will go on.
And by golly it does. They appear on stage at the City Halls
later decked out in bizarre matching stripey pinafore frocks, which turn out to have been a gift /practical joke from brother Rufus, and deliver their twisted ballads and confrontational nursery rhymes with engaging informality, full of random anecdotes and self-dep- recating humour (Lucy: “People say oh we must be a nod to the McGarrigles and the Roches and we said oh no, we’re nothing like them, they practised!”)
From Woody Guthrie’s Hobo’s Lullaby to Jimmie Rodgers’ Prairie
Lullaby, their beautiful singing is laced with affecting sparseness, while they make no attempt to disguise minimal rehearsal, reading the lyrics off music stands and winning hearts and minds every inch of the way.
marthawainwright.com lucywainwrightroche.com
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