Morrissey Reflects on Loudon Wainwright III’s Debut Album in New Essay

English musician Morrissey has taken to his website to share his fondness of Loudon Wainwright III’s 1970 self-titled debut album.

Morrissey’s essay – published under the title Let Us Now Praise Famous Men – arrives as an 800+ word love letter to Wainwright’s record, complemented with lyrics and personal opinions in regard to its composition and release.

“Only the best singing voices can become the very sound and image of geographical places,” Morrissey wrote. “In Delaware when he was younger, Loudon Wainwright imagined his first ever LP, and unzipped it in 1970 to a narrowed public taste that left it chartless forever. On the sleeve he stood with no importance against a brick wall, in the way that classic art avoids fashion. 

“He needed nothing but his solo acoustic and his impressive palette of words,” he added. “Whoever else was offering musical dynamics in 1970 did not concern him. The voice was almost hayseed in its yearning, fully in the ‘now’ of 1969/70, saying everything whilst looking nothing, and how ridiculous it is to be afraid.”

Originally released in 1970 via Atlantic Records, Loudon Wainwright III (occasionally referred to as Album I in keeping with the naming convention of his next two records) was an auspicious start to his career. Though it spawned no singles and didn’t chart (a feat Wainwright wouldn’t achieve until 1972’s Album III), it is still remembered fondly by supporters such as Morrissey as proof that Wainwright was simply ahead of his time.

“All political careers end in failure. All musical careers eventually go soft,” Morrissey continued. “Loudon Wainwright refused to become a sleeping-pill accident like similar dreamboats Phil Ochs, Tim Hardin, Tim Buckley. By the year 2000, singers are given awards for songs that weren’t worth writing in the first place; Loudon Wainwright missed all of that and stood clear of the three-ringed circus. It wasn’t the case that he followed 1970 with failure, but the scholastic pride of life is caught in a thought-smashing way on this irradiant debut, and like an old hang-dog hound it stays beside me – dolefully looking up occasionally to make sure that I’m still here and I’m still me. I am.

“Finally, victory. Sometimes it takes the rest of the world fifty years to catch up,” he concluded. “But they do.”

His 1970 debut marked something of a transitory period of Wainwright’s life. Released shortly after he had relocated to New York City and signed a record deal, its release occurred one year before his marriage to Canadian musician Kate McGarrigle, with whom he had two children. Wainwright and McGarrigle would later divorce in 1976.

Wainwright’s most recent album, Lifetime Achievement, was released in 2022. Morrissey, however, hasn’t released a new album since 2020’s I Am Not a Dog on a Chain, though he has since claimed that a war on “free speech” has left him unable to release further records. Planned albums include 2023’s Bonfire of Teenagers, and Without Music the World Dies, though the latter has yet to be given even a tentative release date.