![]() (SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT") The title song has the easy lope of a country ballad. On "Lifetime Achievement," he's back to basics, strumming a guitar, clawing at a banjo. Over the course of his career, at various times, he's plugged in and rocked out, written movie soundtracks and has crooned in front of an orchestra or two. TUCKER: Wainwright's first couple of albums released in 1970 and '71 were simple affairs, folk records with the author accompanying himself on acoustic guitar. In five years, you'll be 80, poised way up there on the high diving board. WAINWRIGHT: (Singing) How old is 75? So old that you're hardly alive. He's more serene than usual, contemplating mortality. This time around, having turned 75, there's an autumnal air to his songs, or perhaps I should say, a winter chill. In the past, Wainwright has been ruthless and unsparing in his honesty about his faults as a husband, father, son and workaholic artist. KEN TUCKER, BYLINE: Loudon Wainwright is folk music's great confessor, a compulsive chronicler of growing up, falling in love, getting married, having kids, getting divorced, growing old and dying. Moanin and groanin' and amendin' and atonin' and doin' the best I can (ph). I'm fussin' and frettin', I'm underpants sweatin'. ![]() ![]() Bullyin', bashin' and a bit of talk trashin', givin' it away for free. I been lyin' and cheatin', nudge and browbeatin', in a jam, on the lam, at sea. Yellin' and blinkin' and smokin' and drinkin' and waitin' for the other shoe. Walkin' and joggin' and skatin' and tobogganin' and missing you, don't you go? I been wonderin', worryin', slowin' down, hurryin', walkin' the floor. LOUDON WAINWRIGHT III: (Singing) I been boatin' and fishin' and mopin' and wishin' and skiin' on water and snow. It's called "Lifetime Achievement." And rock critic Ken Tucker says the album contains Wainwright's characteristic bluntness and honesty, this time about being older. So it's not surprising that when he recently turned 75, he decided to make a new album that is about trying, and mostly failing, to age gracefully. The singer-songwriter Loudon Wainwright is known for his intensely autobiographical writing.
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