He Said, She Said

Keeping up with the Wainwrights could almost be a full time job, which is probably why I don't bother that much. Unfortunately it means I missed this Guardian interview with Martha:

Martha Wainwright came up with an effective way of dealing with having a singer-songwriter father who substituted looking after his family by writing about them in songs. She proved that those who live by the pen will die by the pen, and wrote a song about him called Bloody Mother Fucking Asshole. "For most of my childhood Loudon [Wainwright III] talked to me in song, which is a bit of a shitty thing to do," says Wainwright, who only started writing songs after becoming peeved at the amount of attention her brother Rufus was getting. "Especially as he always makes himself come across as funny and charming while the rest of us seem like whining victims, and we can't tell our side of the story. As a result he has a daughter who smokes and drinks too much and writes songs with titles like Bloody Mother Fucking Asshole."

Martha Wainwright's career might well be designed to irritate her family. Her first album is filled with unhinged, emotional songs that fall into what she calls the "woe is me" vein, and she requires no prompting to reveal the source of her inspiration and especially the effect her father's song I'd Rather Be Lonely had on her. "I always felt terribly sorry for the poor woman I thought it was about because of the line: 'Every time I see you cry you're just a clone of every woman I've known.' Then one time I was on tour with Loudon and he said to the crowd: 'I wrote this song about my daughter.' I had no idea. We lived together for one year in New York when I was 14 and it was a disaster, and I'd Rather Be Lonely was about that year. He really crossed the line there."

I don't know, given her level of whining through one short interview, you can sort of see Loudon's side. Then there's this:

"It's completely dated now because he uses a crappy synthesizer, but [Leonard Cohen's] I'm Your Man was a revelation because it was clear that the words are more important than the music."

Which is wrong on all it's important points, not least 'cos Laughin' Len's synth was crappy and dated even in 1989 when the album was released.