Post Description

“How old is 75?” Loudon Wainwright III asks near the end of his new album, Lifetime Achievement. There’s a rickety banjo strumming in the background as he answers his own rhetorical question: “So old you’re barely alive”. It lands like a punchline, but Wainwright tempers that levity with an almost unbearable gravity. On the verses to “How Old Is 75?” he notes that he’s already outlived his mother by one year and Loudon II by 13. What does that signify? 

Nothing really. It’s just the math of mortality, which measures the quantity but not the quality of years: “With our allotted amounts, what gets done is what counts”, he sings over strings that quiver and quake. “Was it time wasted or was it well spent?”

What age does offer him, however, is a new perspective on his life. Lifetime Achievement is an album about identifying and appreciating the things that are most important, that make life in the city or on the island worthwhile. 

For Wainwright, it’s family. It’s loved ones. It might even be us, his listeners. On the title track he surveys his shelves full of trophies and walls heavy with every award imaginable: “Trophies on my mantelpiece, citations on my wall”, he sings over a country two-step, “but who needs cash and prizes? What I achieved is you”. He never really says who “you” is. It might be a love song to his girlfriend, a fatherly ode to his kids, or maybe a paean to his fans. But that only makes his declaration sound all the more poignant, as though Wainwright is still figuring it all out while the clock ticks down.

Tracks:
01 - I Been
02 - One Wish
03 - It Takes 2
04 - Fam Vac
05 - Hell
06 - Little Piece of Me
07 - No Man's Land
08 - Back in Your Town
09 - Town & Country
10 - Island
11 - It
12 - Hat
13 - Lifetime Achievement
14 - How Old is 75_
15 - Fun & Free

Staat er compleet op, 10% pars mee gepost. Met zeer veel dank aan de originele poster. Laat af en toe eens weten wat je van het album vindt. Altijd leuk, de mening van anderen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1lCQyNqV24