4 Loudon Wainwright III

Last Man On Earth

RED HOUSE 2001, FROM £5.59 You Say: “One I could not stop listening to and the one I return to the most. Its emotional resonance continues to floor me.” Glenn Hornbeek, MOJO Facebook Written in the Westchester County home of his dead mother following a traumatic period of writer’s block, Last Man On Earth is, in its way, a rueful companion record to 1992’s History. If anything, it’s more honest and unsparing, the 53-year-old Wainwright examining his deep loneliness (Living Alone), his Oedipal love for his mother (White Winos) and his delicate mental health (I’m Not Gonna Cry) with an unsparing humour and clarity. It’s a long-player for every middle-aged man who’s ever stood alone, in his bathrobe, at four in the morning, staring at nothing, and overwhelmed by the sadness of it all.