Stories I Might Regret Telling You
Failed to add items
Sorry, we are unable to add the item because your shopping cart is already at capacity.
Add to basket failed.
Please try again later
Add to Wish List failed.
Please try again later
Remove from Wish List failed.
Please try again later
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Select 1 audiobook a month from our entire collection.
Listen to your selected audiobooks as long as you're a member.
Get unlimited access to bingeable podcasts.
Auto-renews at $8.99/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.
Buy Now for $18.05
-
Narrated by:
-
Martha Wainwright
About this listen
This is Martha Wainwright’s heartfelt memoir about growing up in a bohemian musical family and her experiences with love, loss, motherhood, divorce, the music industry and more.
Born into music royalty, the daughter of folk legends Kate McGarrigle and Loudon Wainwright III and sister to the highly-acclaimed singer Rufus Wainwright, Martha grew up in a world filled with such incomparable folk legends as Leonard Cohen, Anna McGarrigle, Richard and Linda Thompson, Pete Townsend and Emmylou Harris. It was within this loud, boisterous, musical milieu that Martha came of age, struggling to find her voice until she exploded onto the music scene with her 2005 debut and critically acclaimed album, Martha Wainwright, which contained the blistering hit, ‘Bloody Mother F*cking Asshole’, which the Sunday Times called one of the best songs of that year. Her successful debut album and the ones that followed such as Come Home to Mama, I Know You're Married but I've Got Feelings Too and Goodnight City came to define Martha's searing songwriting style and established her as a powerful voice to be reckoned with.
In Stories I Might Regret Telling You, Martha digs into the deep recesses of herself with the same emotional honesty that has come to define her music. She describes her tumultuous public-facing journey from awkward, earnest and ultimately rebellious daughter, through her intense competition and ultimate alliance with her brother, Rufus, to the heart-breaking loss of their mother, Kate, and then, finally, discovering her voice as an artist. With candour and grace, Martha writes of becoming a mother herself and making peace with her past struggles with Kate and her younger self. Ultimately, this book offers a thoughtful and deeply personal look into the extraordinary life of one of the most talented singer-songwriters in music today.
Critic Reviews
'First class family drama… Tales of rivalry, love, drugs and difficult births litter the singer-songwriters gripping account of life in a dysfunctional music dynasty… very little feels off-limits in this slim but jam-packed book, full of very good times in the circus that is a performer’s life as well as very bad times... This is a memoir full of talented, headstrong people recycling their pain as songcraft; of ambitions pursued or curtailed, and of love frequently tinged with other things – rivalry, frustration, not measuring up. For all the epigenetic baggage, though, it is above all the story of Wainwright’s gutsy, instinctual pursuit of her own muse.'
'A hilariously candid memoir … the revered singer-songwriter’s autobiography shows her to be one of a kind… Acerbic, often hilarious and more candid that it should be… her transparency is the book’s golden ticket… In short, she has had a life worth documenting. At the end of 244 remarkable pages, she signs off with a typical self-effacing line: “Perhaps I am someone whose luck gets better halfway though. That would be good.” It would be good, and she would deserve it.'
'Witty and honest… Like her music, Wainwright’s searingly honest and entirely charming memoir, aptly titled Stories I Might Regret Telling You, dissects these familial bonds and her bohemian childhood… Wainwright, a mother of two, writes movingly about relationships, divorce, the termination of pregnancy and the trials, tribulations and rewards of having children.'
‘With disarming candour and courage, Martha tells us of finding her own voice and peace as a working artist and mother. Her story is made more unique because of the remarkably gifted musical family she was born into.’ (Emmylou Harris)
'It’s like reading extremely private diary entries through your laced fingers. From page one, chapter one, Wainwright pulls no punches (her father, singer Loudon Wainwright III, informed his daughter when she was a teenager that “he didn’t want me at first and pressured my mother to have an abortion”). It continues with equal measures of directness and poignancy … . Neither the industry in which she works nor her family gets off lightly, and that includes Wainwright herself, who is to candid self-reflection as a moth is to a flame. The family ties, however, are the most vicariously gratifying to read … Confessional and contemplative to the nth degree, you won’t regret reading it, either.'
Intimate, honest and vulnerable
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I was listening to her parents before she was born.
Seen her perform and felt her intensity and passion but the book filled in so much.
Martha reads really well. There’s no holding back and she has a clear understanding of her journey so far.
At times she reminded me of a young Marianne Faithful but I think she’s found her strength sooner.
Poor Brad gets a bashing. I imagine his book if he ever wrote one would paint a very different story,
But I doubt I’d be interested in reading it.
I think Audio bios, when read by the writer, are the closest us strangers get to knowing someone we admire.
More power to your pen Martha. You rock.
Heartfelt and moving
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
In the spirit of reconciliation, Audible acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.