I'm a Self Destructive Fool

I am a big fan of Loudon Wainwright III.

Tonight, the iPod machine hit upon 'Swimming Song', which is one of my favourites of his, but one I hadn't heard for ages...

I think the first time I heard Loudon - or 'Loud' to his mum - was when Jim and I were hiking in Derbyshire. We were holed up in a pub in a village somewhere on the outskirts of Matlock, too weary to walk the last few miles into town, in the ceaseless rain. It seemed that we had missed the last bus out of the village, and we were facing a dreary trudge into Matlock. We were half heartedly hitchhiking on the road out of the village, when a guy in an estate car pulled up and offered us a lift into town. He was playing some whiny voiced bloke on the tape machine, and on enquiry we were advised that we were listening to the great LW3. We struck up a rapport with our driver, who insisted on dropping us at the Matlock youth hostel, and waiting outside until it was clear that they had spare beds. A true gentleman.

Saw Loudon in concert not too long after that, with Jim and Dan at the Concert Hall in Nottingham. He's great live - songs which can seem earnest and maudlin on record are transformed into hilarious monologues on the stage - When I'm At Your House being a memorable example.

At certain points during the concert Wainwright would produce a yello slip of paper from his shirt breast pocket, consult it momentarily, then fold it and replace it. I assumed that it was his set list, or the lyrics to a new song, but I later read an interview where he claimed that it was a note from his analyst (LW3 is notoriously neurotic). Apparently the message was 'You are a good person! You're doing a great job!' I'm thinking of taking something similar to work with me...

1.  This summer I went swimming,
   This summer I might have drowned
   But I held my breath and I kicked my feet
   And I moved my arms around, I moved my arms around.

2.  This summer I swam in the ocean,
   And I swam in a swimming pool,
   Salt my wounds, chlorine my eyes,
   I'm a self-destructive fool, a self-destructive fool.

3.  This summer I swam in a public place
   And a resevoir, to boot,
   At the latter I was informal,
   At the former I wore my suit, I wore my swimming suit.

4.  This summer I did the backstroke
   And you know that's not all
   I did the breast stroke and the butterfly
   And the old Australian crawl, the old Australian crawl.

5.  This summer I did swan dives
   And jackknifes for you all
   And once when you weren't looking
   I did a cannonball, I did a cannonball.