Songs
The "neo-operatic" opening track "Foolish Love", arranged by Van Dyke Parks, was described by Allmusic contributor Matthew Greenwald as a "lush, orchestral-soaked ballad, with incredible strings". He asserted that Wainwright's lyrics took the form of a letter to himself, defining his goals and "sense of purpose". The song "Danny Boy", with its "fabulous wordplay that stays literate and easy to understand at the time", contains "subtle" horn lines and sampled percussion. The song alludes to Wainwright's homosexuality, which Greenwald considered a "brave move". According to biography author Kirk Lake, "Danny Boy" is a companion piece to "Foolish Love" and together they represent the start and end of a relationship between a gay man and a straight man. Danny, the straight "drug-addled" title figure with whom Wainwright had a three-year relationship, is the subject of both songs in addition to others on the album; he appears in the album's collage artwork. Wainwright sings of being so blinded by love that he fails to notice the "ship with eight sails" threatening to come around the bend, a reference to Bertolt Brecht's 1928 musical The Threepenny Opera.
The chorus in "April Fools" begins with an "unusually upbeat attitude" and was considered by Greenwald to be the most accessible track on the album. The song showcased Jim Keltner's drum performance as well as Wainwright's piano playing. Driven by Wainwright's guitar playing, "In My Arms" was described by Greenwald as a "forlorn", Spanish-influenced ballad that sounded as though it "could have been recorded in France in the 1920s". The song "Millbrook" is an ode to his boarding school compatriots. Wainwright has admitted to being "upset and drunk" when recording the final take. "Baby", which has been considered one of the most melancholic songs on the album, contains "oddly placed" and "slightly quirky" major seventh chords. Greenwald called the lyrics "a stream-of-consciousness pleasure, relating the confusing and intoxicating emotions of young love."
"Beauty Mark" is an ode to Wainwright's mother, the title referring to the mole above her lip. The song is one of the few up-tempo tracks on the album and contains multiple keyboard overdubs by Brion. Chris Yurkiw of the Montreal Mirror considered the track to be the most moving love song on the album, with an "overt and open-hearted" reference to his homosexuality: "I may not be so manly, but still I know you love me." Wainwright's Summer Stage performance of "Beauty Mark" appears on his 2005 DVD All I Want. In "Barcelona", Wainwright recalls a love affair that took place in the city of the same name. The song is loosely about AIDS and contains the Italian language lyric "Fuggi, regal fantasima", taken from Giuseppe Verdi's opera Macbeth. According to Wainwright, the line appears in a scene when "Macbeth is going mad and sees the ghost, and in mind the ghost was AIDS." "Matinee Idol" is about the rise and fall of an entertainment figure, inspired by the death of actor River Phoenix. According to Greenwald, the musical song has a "1920s, cabaret musical feel". "Damned Ladies" is a slow ballad about the "beloved yet doomed ladies of opera". Wainwright said the following of "Damned Ladies", which contains references to nine opera heroines: "In the song, I lament how these women are constantly dying brutal deaths, which I can see coming but cannot stop. It gets me every time." Greenwald described "Sally Ann" as 1920s love ballad of "lost love and emotional regret". The melody in "Imaginary Love", the album's closing track, contains sixth and major seventh chords.
Read more about this topic: Rufus Wainwright (album)
Famous quotes containing the word songs:
“The hills are alive with the sound of music, with songs they have sung for a thousand years.”
—Oscar Hammerstein II (1895–1960)
“When we were at school we were taught to sing the songs of the Europeans. How many of us were taught the songs of the Wanyamwezi or of the Wahehe? Many of us have learnt to dance the rumba, or the cha cha, to rock and roll and to twist and even to dance the waltz and foxtrot. But how many of us can dance, or have even heard of the gombe sugu, the mangala, nyang’umumi, kiduo, or lele mama?”
—Julius K. Nyerere (b. 1922)
“O past! O happy life! O songs of joy!
In the air, in the woods, over fields,
Loved! loved! loved! loved! loved!
But my mate no more, no more with me!
We two together no more.”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)