Susan Morrison has a gift for storytelling and an eye for impactful journalism. Before landing at The New Yorker, she led The New York Observer with wit and editorial savvy. She was also one of the original editors of Spy, the satirical magazine famous for its fearless humor and cultural commentary during the late ‘80s and ‘90s. Her latest project is a deep-dive biography of SNL mastermind Lorne Michaels, Lorne: The Man Who Invented Saturday Night Live. She unpacks the story of the man behind the iconic show that recently celebrated its 50th anniversary.
More: Author Susan Morrison on profiling Lorne Michaels (The Treatment, 2025)
For her Treat, Morrison reminisces about a very special Loudon Wainwright III concert at legendary NYC venue The Bottom Line — it’s the show that was eventually released as Wainwright’s second live album Career Moves (1993). The song "Thanksgiving" really struck a chord with Susan that night, she felt that its balance of humor and seriousness echoed her own work at Spy magazine. She expertly zeroes in on how Wainwright’s music could be both laugh-out-loud funny and profoundly moving all at once. And… this story has a coda! Years after that memorable night, Morrison and Wainwright III connected and became romantically involved. Swoon.
This segment has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Sometime in the late ‘80s, wWhen I was an editor at Spy magazine, I went to see Loudon Wainwright III at The Bottom Line. I had some of his records, and [had] known his work for a while, but this was an incredible show that ended up being turned into a live album called Career Moves.
I was so blown away by the way he had songs that made me cry and at the same time laugh really hard. And one that he played that night was called “Thanksgiving”, which is just… it's super tragic, but also it's a real comedy about what a nightmare your family can be.
I think that I responded to it so much because what we were doing at Spy magazine was journalism that was really funny, but that was also important.
We exposed all the terrible things there were to know about Donald Trump, including his business bankruptcy and just what an a**hole he was, but we were laughing a lot all along the way. So I really appreciated that someone could do something that was both funny and serious in one work of art.
[This show] was turned into this record, and later on, I was able to find my own laugh on that record, which was real fun. And the end to all of this is that now, for the past 10 years, I've been living with Loudon Wainwright III, and so I get to have that experience every day.