Daughter

Recently I watched Knocked Up a movie about a sassy, career motivated E! reporter getting knocked up by and with a goofy, loveable and broke website developer. I am a semi-fan of The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up is done by the same people.

As can be guessed, at the end of this movie a baby is born. A baby is born and I cry. I almost always cry when babies are born and so I cried when this movie baby was born, its movie birth reminding me of the live and in stereo births of my three babies, the births of my friends' babies, the births of all babies.

I first heard Loudon Wainwright III's version of "Daughter" at the end of this movie. Naturally I cried. Probably because I have two daughters and probably because I'm a sap. Then I went and found the song. Then I read a bit about LWIII. Then I read a bit about his children with Kate McGarrigle, Rufus and Martha, also singer-songwriters. I found lyrics to Martha's song "Bloody Mother Fucking Asshole" which is supposedly about her father and begins "poetry is no place for a heart that's a whore."

After all of this reading and listening, I stopped reading and I stopped listening.

Until the other day while writing the daughter knitting post. I decided to find out more about the song "Daughter," my recent obsession with music history the direct result of a terrifically late discovery about 'Til Tuesday and Aimee Mann (Does my growing up Mormon in Salt Lake City in the 80s explain anything?)

I found this:

"Daughter" was written by Peter Blegvad, a singer-songwriter who used to play with the avant-rock combo Henry Cow in the '70s and the Golden Palominos in the '80s. "Daughter" comes from his 1995 album, Just Woke Up.

I have no idea what kind of a parent LWIII was/is. I will not pass judgment. Parenting is fucking hard. My children could very well write a song about me someday and it might not be pretty.

But I'd be lying if I didn't say that I'm happy that "Daughter" was penned by a man whose "lyrics frequently feature word games, literary references and complex and extended rhyme schemes. He can also claim credit for one of the world's longest grammatically-correct palindromes (from Kew. Rhone.):

Peel's foe not a set animal laminates a tone of sleep" (this about the lyrics and palindrome from the ever-semi-reliable source Wikipedia).

And because I am a freak and geek I am now going to listen to Blegvad's "Daughter" followed by Wainwright's "Daughter" followed by Martha Wainwright's "M.B.F.A."

I do not recommend that you do the same.

Geeks click here.