CD reviews: Martha Wainwright – I Know You’re Married But I’ve Got Feelings Too – 71

You’d hope that Martha Wainwright would have found some peace of mind following the cathartic ‘Bloody Mother F***ing Asshole’, a song timidly aimed at her father, singer Loudon Wainwright III. It seems not. While there’s nothing quite as pointed as that track, Wainwright’s second album is none the less replete with tales of betrayal and love gone awry.

So while her rasp of a voice is not a thing of beauty (a bit like Marianne Faithfull without the 40-a-day cigarette habit), it’s perfectly suited for delivering lines like “You cannot make me read your tiny mind/Who’s got the time?” (‘Jesus and Mary’).

Yet for all the withering put-downs, the scabrous rage of other songs with titles like ‘You Cheated Me’, and the navel-gazing introspection of, among others, ‘Bleeding All Over You’ (from which the album’s title is extracted), I Know You’re Married… is no high school diary. These are emotion-filled songs but there’s a sophistication and a subtlety to them that the likes of Alanis Morissette could never muster.

Despite some heavy-hitting guests including Pete Townshend, Garth Hudson, Donald Fagen and, inevitably, family members Kate and Anna McGarrigle (mum and aunt, respectively) and brother Rufus (unsurprisingly, papa Loudon kept out of this one), they never overpower Wainwright; they’re all there to express her distinct vision.

It’s that clarity of purpose that makes covers of Pink Floyd’s ‘See Emily Play’ and Eurythmics’ ‘Love Is a Stranger’ (the latter an Australasia-only bonus track) superfluous. When you write songs as good as Wainwright’s, why sing other people’s?

I Know You’re Married But I’ve Got Feelings Too

FROM: Shock/US
GENRE: Singer-songwriter
MUSIC: 4/5
SOUND: 4/5

RICHARD BETTS