Want One - Album References

Album References

The title of the first track comes from The Wizard of Oz, in which the Wicked Witch of the West screams "Oh, what a world! What a world!" as she is melting away. Maurice Ravel's Boléro is musically referenced throughout the track. "I Don't Know What It Is" contains several allusions to the American sitcom Three's Company, specifically the opening theme song, with phrases such as "Take a step that is new", "...thinks Three's Company", and "So I knock on the door". The lyrics "Taking the Santa Fe and the Atchison, Topeka" is a reference to Judy Garland's 1946 musical film The Harvey Girls, which itself contains a reference to the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway with the song "On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe". "I Don't Know What It Is" also mentions several geographic locations, including Calais, Dover, Poland, Limbo, and Lower Manhattan.

The flute arrangement in "Vicious World" is a reference to Richard Wagner's opera Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. "Movies of Myself" mentions a Saturday Evening Post edition by Jesus as well as "an old piece of bacon never eaten by Elvis", referring to a story that Wainwright heard about someone who purchased a framed piece of bacon on eBay that at one time belonged to musician Elvis Presley. "Go or Go Ahead" contains celestial and mythological references, from angels, stars, planets, and Mars to vampires and Medusa (along with the phrase "Look in her eyes"), a female chthonic monster that turns onlookers to stone.

"Vibrate" references pop star Britney Spears and fairy tale character Pinocchio, while "14th Street" refers to the nursery rhyme about Little Bo Peep. The latter also has the phrase "And there'll be rainbows", referring to Judy Garland's classic ballad "Over the Rainbow" from The Wizard of Oz. "Natasha" was written for and about Wainwright's friend, actress Natasha Lyonne, who has had public struggles with substance abuse and health problems.

The album's title track, "Want", alludes to Wainwright's parents Loudon Wainwright III and Kate McGarrigle, and mentions musicians John Lennon and Leonard Cohen as well as 3rd Rock from the Sun cast members John Lithgow and Jane Curtin. In "11:11", "Put away your posies, I'm gonna have a drink before we ring around the rosies" refers to the nursery rhyme "Ring Around the Rosie", which is commonly said to be about the black plague. The last verse, which mentions "something burning" in Manhattan, alludes to the September 11 attacks and the collapse of the World Trade Center towers. "Dinner at Eight" was written about a disagreement Wainwright and his father had at a photo shoot for Rolling Stone. The song contains an allusion to the Biblical story of David and Goliath with the phrase "I'm gonna take you down with one little stone".