It’s a pity if people know only one song by Loudon Wainwright III, his novelty tune “Dead Skunk,” which hit the Top 20 charts in 1973. The singer-songwriter-guitarist-satirist-raconteur has been churning out albums every couple of years since his self-titled Atlantic debut in 1970, most of them with a wide-ranging array of moods and terrific lyrics.
There’s the gentle satire of a lonely performer lusting for a female fan in “Motel Blues”: “Chronologically I know you’re young, but when you kissed me in the club you bit my tongue.” There’s the stark sadness of telling his kids about his failing marriage in “Your Mother and I”: “Your mother and I are not getting along; somehow, somewhere, something went wrong.” He shows off his political side in the prescient song “I Had a Dream,” about Donald Trump winning the White House, which he wrote during last year’s presidential campaign: “He made Ben Carson Secretary of Health, and Sarah Palin Secretary of Stealth. If you think that’s scary just you wait, he made Newt Gingrich the Secretary of State, and Rush Limbaugh the Secretary of Hate.”
Wainwright’s most recent album, “Haven’t Got the Blues (Yet),” came out in 2014. Now he’s written a memoir, “Liner Notes — On Parents & Children, Exes & Excess, Death & Decay, & a Few of My Other Favorite Things.” It’s not exactly a tell-all, but as the subtitle suggests, it tells a lot: about his own indiscretions, his love/hate relationship with the music business, his thoughts on the mysteries of creativity, and the ups and downs of life with his musical family (he was married to the late Kate McGarrigle, had a long relationship with Suzzy Roche, and his kids are Martha and Rufus Wainwright and Lucy Wainwright Roche).
Wainwright, 71, visits Berklee College of Music on Sept. 13. Laidback and cheery, he spoke about the appearance, his book, and his music by phone from his home in Manhattan.
Q. You grew up in New York’s Westchester County, did boarding school, studied acting at Carnegie Mellon but dropped out, went west to become a hippie, then moved to Boston, where your career was launched. How did you end up here?
A. It was two things, I suppose. I got caught up in the macrobiotic community in Brookline, and was living in a macrobiotic study house there. But also, when I had written my first few songs, I went to Cambridge and Boston, and sometimes to New York, to play in little rooms. In Boston I would play in the clubs on Charles Street like the Sword in the Stone and the Turk’s Head.
Q. What were you doing musically before that?
A. I was in jug bands in boarding school. So I sang all the songs that the Kweskin Jug Band recorded. I sang a couple of Bob Dylan songs. And I did standard folk material. But I never thought it was in me to write them till I met my friend George Gerdes, who did write songs. I thought, if he can do that, then I can. I started writing in 1968, on Ellery Street in Cambridge. The first song was “Edgar.” It never made it to a record, but it was good enough to get me going. And I got a record deal very quickly.
Q. You’ve also done a bit of acting. Was there ever a struggle of choosing between music and acting as a career?
A. No. My main gig has been as a singer-songwriter. The acting work I’ve gotten has been offered to me. Larry Gelbart [who developed “M*A*S*H”] went to see a show I did at the Troubadour in LA. I guess he thought I was good, and he had this idea about a singing surgeon on “M*A*S*H.” That’s how that happened. Judd Apatow saw me on the first incarnation of the David Letterman show. Letterman had this concept to have a singing sidekick, but it only lasted a week. Judd, who was probably 14 or 15 at that point, liked it. Then he tracked the records down and started coming to New York to see me play at the Bottom Line. Years later, he approached me about being on “Undeclared.”
Q. The book feels very conversational. Was that the goal?
A. Well, I’d never written a book before. I started writing the first essays about being a songwriter, and then I started in with my parents and my boyhood and college. The rest of it is just short essays about being in the business, and some of the wives and girlfriends and the kids. I would get up every day and try to write something. I’m glad it sounds conversational.
Q. What will happen at your Berklee show?
A. Well, it’s not really a show. It’s what they call an event. I’ll come up there and talk about the book and I’ll read from the book. I’ll have my guitar with me, so I’ll do some pickin’ and grinnin’.
Q. It’s been a few years since “Haven’t Got the Blues (Yet).” Beyond “I Had a Dream,” do you have enough songs for a new album?
A. No, I’ve been writing a book for the last three years. So I have an excuse for not doing my homework. But I’m always trying to write new songs, and I’m coming up with a few things.
Q. Do you dare to sing “I Had a Dream” now?
A. Sure. When I wrote it and was singing it, pre-election, people loved it; they thought it was funny. Then he got elected, and I said, “I’m not singing that anymore.” But now I am singing it because it has a whole new layer of meaning. But I’ve updated it. Now, instead of Rush Limbaugh at the end, I name-check Steve Bannon. So he’s now the Secretary of Hate.
Liner Notes: An Evening with Loudon Wainwright III
At David Friend Recital Hall, 921 Boylston St., Berklee College of Music, Sept. 13 at 7 p.m.
Tickets $27 (book included), www.berklee.edu
Contact Ed Symkus at esymkus@rcn.com.