- Vin Scelsa's Idiots Delight Show - Sunday
1st March 1998
- New
York Radio Station - WNEW FM 102.7
-
- (During a radio
interview, Vin Scelsa (a DJ friend of Loudon) delicately asks
Loudon to explain the somewhat ambiguous lyrics of 'Four Mirrors').
Here's the relevant excerpt - word for word . . .
-
- VIN SCELSA : There's a song on the new album called
Four Mirrors. You've always written about your family - you've
always been very, um, honest and forthright about the autobiographical
nature of your songs and the intergenerational intrigues and
relationships. That seems to be what's going on in Four Mirrors,
although parts of it confuse me. I'm not quite sure - who's in
the mirror, who's looking, who's being addressed, who the first
person is, who the second person is in the song. Can you enlighten
me on this?
LOUDON : Well again it's about my father, uh,
me and my father. He died in 1988 and for the last 20 years of
his life he lived up on 82nd and Broadway with a woman that I
refer to in the song as 'my common law stepmom'. She and their
daughter, my half-sister Anna, still live up in that apartment
... in fact I was there today.
The song was written when I spent
some time there one summer, I rented it or sublet it, and stayed
there for about three weeks. And just being there in that apartment
with all the pictures and these mirrors. You know that thing
where you, I don't know if you've had it yet, but where you walk
by the mirror and you glimpse yourself, and you think it's your
father, 'cause you just look so much like him.
Three of the mirrors are about
kind of, uh, seeing him in me, as I say. Then the last thing
is about, uh .. he used to tell me this chilling story about
when he was driving ... once he was driving - his father died
when he was 17, and he was driving back up from New York on the
West, you know, on the Sawmill or something like that, up to
Westchester and it was during one of those blinding snowstorms,
you know, where the snowflakes are as big as quarters and you
can't see anything. And uh, he looked in the rear-view mirror
and he saw his father in the back seat. So much so, that he actually
reached back to tou... and uh, nothing was there, So the last
thing is about going down on the street and moving the car, and
catching a glimpse of my Grandfather...
VIN : ... who would be Loudon Wainwright
the first. Your dad of course, the second, uh, was a very popular
and famous writer and journalist for Life Magazine, he was an
Editor there as well ...
LOUDON : Senior Editor and Columnist, yeah
...
VIN : The song is called Four Mirrors, and
we'll listen to it now on WNEW FM.
(Vin plays 'Four
Mirrors' from the CD).
VIN : You know Loudon, I guess it was two
years ago, the last time we did radio together and I remember
saying to you at that time that I felt you were writing the best
songs of your career, then, two years ago. And I can still make
that statement, two years later now. I think you are still writing
the best songs of your career, man, these are extraordinary pieces.
LOUDON : Well, thanks very much.
VIN : That song from the new album called
Little Ship is called Four Mirrors. Now there is *one*
line in there, that sort of has me ... a little worried, and
hesitant ... and ... and all that kind of stuff, um. 'Cos the
song is about when ... after your ... your Dad ... your Dad and
your Mom split, and then he had this ... he had a relationship
with this other woman, who you call your common law step-mother
...
LOUDON : Mom.
VIN : Whatever. Uh, but there's this line
towards the beginning of the song about "on day one, our
first date ..."
LOUDON : " ... on day one, *my*
first date, I slept with your wife"
VIN : Now, ..... yeah, ..... wh-wh-wh-wh-who,
(Vin stammers) .... may I ask this?
LOUDON : Sure! That would be my Mother
VIN : Who would be .....???
LOUDON : ... *My* Mother!!
VIN : ... who would be *your* Mother
.....
LOUDON : Right!
VIN : ... *his* wife ..... *your*
Mother ..... on day one .....
LOUDON : Yeah! When I was born .....
VIN : Oh, when you were BORN! Oh! ......
(Vin gasps a
great sigh of relief)
LOUDON : (Obviously
enjoying this) Yeah!
Lying there, nestling, ..... at the breast.
VIN : Y'see, I though we were getting into,
like, this Oedipal thing here, and that's uh ...
LOUDON : Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh ......
DAVE MANSFIELD : We were, but .....
LOUDON : ... well, yeah ....
(Loudon starts laughing
and they all join in)
LOUDON : ..... but eh, I would only sleep with my Mother.
I wouldn't sleep with my common law step-mom .....
VIN : ... I see ... (still chuckling)
LOUDON : ... despite the fact that "I
desire her and fear her"
VIN : And you slept with your mother when
you were a baby, not, not, eh ....
LOUDON : Yeah! And for several months before
that.
VIN : (Sighs
with relief) Phew, ...
oh God, ... I was worried about you there for a minute Loudon.
(A very, very relieved
Vin Scelsa cuts to a commercial break). |
