untitled cover project

This summer I might have drowned

Loudon Wainwright III and Kate McGarrigle are Canadian folk royalty and the parents of Rufus Wainwright, the Shrek “Hallelujah” guy. Just kidding, he’s had a lot of great contributions to music and theatre beyond covering Leonard Cohen on the Shrek soundtrack, I just continue to think it’s funny that as a kid I thought he wrote “Hallelujah” because my mom gave me the Shrek soundtrack years before I knew about Leonard Cohen.

Anyway, his dad Loudon wrote this song in 1973 that is either a cute banjo ditty about the joys of swimming or a triumphant metaphor for making it through a real tough time in your life, depending on how bad you are in your feels when listening to it. It’s got one of my favorite lines about skinnydipping ever written. I think my favorite part is the yeehaw ass yelp he does at the end. This song will get stuck in your head for eternity and pump you up for jumping in a lake. As I’m writing this it’s like 90 degrees out so it’s pretty timely. Fuck yeah summer!!!! Nothing can kill me!!!!!!!

Loudon and Kate were married from 1971 to 1976. They had two kids, Rufus and Martha, who found success and acclaim of their own. They wrote with and for and about each other. From The Guardian: “When he and McGarrigle had children, Wainwright used them as source material for his music. He didn’t give it a second thought. ‘Rufus Is a Tit Man‘ is a celebration of his young son breastfeeding but also an expression of envy – that breast was meant for him, not Rufus, he sings: the least his son could do is share.” Weird song, weird family!

Anyway, when Kate and her older sister Anna put out their debut album in 1975, they included a cover of Loudon’s “Swimming Song.” It ditches the drums and full-band thing of the original for stripped-down folk complete with sisterly harmonies and an accordion. It’s a fun little Québécois romp. I love how it sounds like someone whacks their guitar for effect after the “I did a cannonball” line. Kate died of cancer in 2010; here’s a heartbreaking interview with Anna on life without her sister.