Customer Reviews

Little Ship

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

My first listening of Little Ship was the most pleasant surprise I've had in a long time. Loudon Wainwright is the most honest songwriter I've heard. He has the depth to switch from romping fun songs as in Breakfast in Bed (about staying in bed all day making love) to the heart-on-the- sleeve ballads like OGM -- the most honest song written by a man since Jackson Browne's Rosie. Loudon Wainwright is sincere and calls it like he sees it without a hint of pretension. Little Ship is my favorite recording by which to redecorate my kitchen. It is simply an excellent output.

This is a great album but it must be admitted that, as the songwriter grows older, he becomes increasingly morbid. After the raunchy, upbeat opening song, the album settles into a reflection on ghosts, doom, decay and darkness.

"Four Mirrors" is a reflection on how one is haunted by one's parents, long after they're gone, by the similarities they leave behind in us. The poppy "Mr. Ambivalence" about going nowhere. "OGM" about denying the obvious when a relationship has ended. "Our Own War" (not "Our Own Way" as shown in the track listing) compares the battles of a love affair to war, and points out that when the bloodshed is over, so is the relationship. "So Damn Happy" about the relief one feels when ending a relationship. You get the idea.

Yet, the hardest thing about the album is that the author's usually crystal clear analysis of the situation seems a little murky.

In particular, "OGM", the a capella "Underwear" and "Little Ship" are reflections on a relationship that's, essentially, over. In "OGM" the songwriter is flat-out denying it. Worse, though, "Underwear" and "Little Ship" are about the bumps in a relationship, and how the relationship is stronger after surviving them. The melancholy overtones and subtexts suggest, however, that the subject is whistling past the graveyard. The relationship is long gone, and he's trying to pretend otherwise. Not the sort of "wishful thinking" we expect from Loudon.

These are not bad songs, mind you. "OGM" in particular, is one of his best, "Little Ship" is sweet and "Underwear" typically humorous. But the overall effect of the album can be depressing because it's not tempered with LW3's usual clarity. It's not surprising, then, that some of the album's highlights are on more extroverted songs, like "Primrose Hill" and relentlessly cheerful banjo tune "The World Is A Terrible Place".

LW3 followed this album with the all-socially-relevant "Social Studies", which is probably as far from this as he could get.

The fact that Loudon Wainwright is a dead ringer for my father in law did not stop me from buying this album on a whim. I had received a tip several years ago at a conference that I would be "into" this guy's music. So I picked it up on one of my music binges. Well, "into" it I am indeed. From the first song to the last I fell in love with this album and have yet to stop playing it - I bought it two weeks ago and I play it nearly every day.

Because I am typically pretty critical of the music I listen to, I feel that me taking time out to write this down is an indication of how truly good this album is. I hope you'll buy it and listen to it for yourself.

I have purchased, yes paid for, ten of Loudon's CD's. Went to his concert in Brisbane and loved the fact that live or recorded, he sounds the same. I guess I'm a true blue fan, so what else is there to say ?

I'm a huge huge fan of pretty much everything Loudie's ever done, but this album is a particular highwater mark. It's the best of what constitutes, for me, a trilogy of albums that, as a group represent pretty much the best of his output in the last few years...(the others in the trilogy being "Grown Man" and "History").

"Four Mirrors" might be the best song about fathers (specifically, looking in the mirror and seeing your poor old Dad's mug looking back) ever written...Almost unbearably poignant and rich, as is "Primrose Hill", the saga of a homeless person who would, if he struck it rich, buy such luxuries as "a bottle of vodka and some guitar strings"...

And let us not forget "OGM", which chronicles the ebbing of a relationship through changes made to the outgoing message on a phone...He gets more man-woman-love-interaction type stuff into these few lines than many songwriters are able to compress into their whole careers...

What a brilliant songwriter - he somehow gets the real stuff of human life into song, to an extent no one else out there seems capable of doing right now....

Little Ship is a warm presentation of Loudon. I particularly loved the title song "Little Ship," as well as "Breakfast In Bed." They relate to the type of romances that I have also experienced. I feel as if I now know Loudon as a person. "Bein' A Dad" and "Mr. Ambivalent" gives one a sense of his integrity. Its a great CD and underneath expresses a lot of human interest.