"My mother died in 1997 and naturally my world fell apart," begin the liner notes to Loudon Wainwright III's new Last Man on Earth (Red House). It's a downbeat introduction from a man whom casual listeners may know only as a writer of "joke" songs -- his famous 1972 hit single "Dead Skunk," his political satires (the most recent of which were collected on 1999's Hannibal/Rykodisc release Social Studies). This season he even has a recurring role on the Fox network's sit-com Undeclared, as the dysfunctional dad of an awkward college freshman (the show was created by Judd Apatow of Freaks and Geeks fame).

But Wainwright's fans also know him as an uncommonly gifted "confessional" songwriter, one whose commentaries on his own life cut to the bone with surprising candor leavened with the narrative distance of wit. You can hear tales of sibling rivalry, divorce, parent-child battles (from both sides of the equation), and musings on the singer's own mortality. The last time Wainwright faced loss head-on was on 1992's Charisma CD History (is it simply a coincidence that the title echoes one by that other confessional poet, Robert Lowell?). His father, an esteemed writer for Life magazine, had died in 1988, and the songs poured out with a bracing directness, mixing humor and regret.

On Last Man on Earth, facing his mother's death, Wainwright again shows his ability to create detailed rhyming narratives set to just the right generic mold, whether it's country, talking blues, bluegrass banjo, or plain old folk, and the perfect tempos and chords. There's the story about sitting on the back porch drinking with his mother ("White Winos"). And a story in which he remembers his dad ("Surviving Twin") that's a kind of sequel to History's "Sometimes I Forget."

"You never really get over these things," Wainwright tells me over the phone from his Brooklyn Heights home. "I miss my father even more than right after he died. It's kind of deepened the sense of the loss, and the regret about this issue of making it big, and being as big [as him], and growing up."

Competition between father and son is one of the hard memories that informs Wainwright's songs about his father. "They're natural battles that parents have with their children. But there's healthy competition and unhealthy competition, and I always felt that our relationship suffered, and I've always had profound regret about that."

You have to wonder whether Wainwright is experiencing the same kind of competition with his own children (he has four), especially rising star Rufus and Martha, who's also a musician. "I think Rufus and Martha are both extremely talented. Rufus has had a lot of success already, and I'm extremely proud of that. I also wish I was 28 and making my second album, and I'm jealous of everybody. Mostly people like Tom Waits and Randy Newman, who are contemporaries of mine who sell more records than I do. But I'm extremely proud of Rufus and Martha." He pauses, adding with mock indignation, "and my other children."

Getting serious again, he adds, "One of the problems is that my father would never admit we were competitive. `What are you talking about! I'm not competitive with you! I don't want to be a rock singer.' I mean, he was a much more intelligent and sensitive guy than that, but I just felt that there was a real competition right down to the fact that we had the same name and went to the same boarding school."

Some of Wainwright's songs are like open letters to the people he's writing about, whether it's to a sister or to Martha. In the latter he remembers the time he slapped his daughter, hard, and immediately regretted it. Do his loved ones ever express disappointment that he's telling them more in his songs than face to face?

"I think they've had reactions to the songs, certainly if they're named or unnamed and are dragged into the songs kicking and screaming. But there hasn't been a lot of surprise about it. I don't exaggerate much. But again, keeping in mind that it's from my point of view."

Of course, there is "Father/Daughter Dialogue," from the album Grown Man (Charisma, 1995), about Martha. "We'd had this big fight, and she said, `You know, you write these sensitive songs about your kids and missing your kids, and what a load of fucking shit!' We'd had a bottle of wine and more, and we started to fight and argue, and then it ended, and then the next day I wrote this song called `The Father/Daughter Dialogue' where I wrote both sides of the argument. And she actually sings on it. Despite the fact that I wrote it. That's typical: there were objections raised and then what do I do but write a song about it. That's what I do anyway."

Issue Date: October 19 - 25, 2001