Rufus Wainwright has always been an emotional artist —he’s written about his addictions to drugs, talked openly about his sexual history and he hasn’t shied away from singing about his famous family. But his latest record may be his most introspective yet.
The album, All Days Are Nights: Songs for Lulu, was written while his mother, the popular Canadian folk singer Kate McGarrigle, was battling cancer.
She died in January, with Wainwright, his songwriting sister Martha and his folk singing father, and McGarrigle’s ex, Loudon Wainwright III by her side. When I spoke to the Montreal-raised artist about two months after his mother’s death, he sounded exhausted. But, as usual, he didn’t shy away from talking about his personal life.
“There have been times where I’ve just been going through the motions,” he says from Montauk, N.Y., recalling some concerts he’s played recently. “But I’d hit a chord and sing a note and somehow it just opened the floodgates to a sea of memories and feelings. I was completely flabbergasted and beside myself. There’s a musical language that corresponds to her spirit for sure.”
Whether it’s real or imagined on my part, that spirit seems to be all over his new disc. The record is a stunning collection of haunting piano and vocal-only songs that deal with illness, loneliness and also hope. Not every song is explicitly about his family, but tracks such as Martha, tackle his mother’s cancer — and his relationship with his sister — head on.
“One of the great natural mysteries of the musical world is my family,” he says half-joking, explaining why he writes about his relatives. “The fact is we are all successful, but not we’re the Jacksons, thank God. We’ve all managed to carve out our own singular sounds that are in one way distant, but also complementary to each other. It’s a real anomaly.”
The songwriting on this record gives those heartfelt lyrics an even softer edge. The spare instrumentation (though the piano is incredibly complex) is a far cry from the artist’s usual over-the-top musical-like pop. It was as if he wanted to bring his songwriting back to basics so he could show off just what he learned from his mother and father over the years.
Wainwright knows he still has many months ahead of him before the grief begins to subside, but that won’t keep him from playing. If anything, his mother’s death will keep him going.
“When she died there was this almost instantiations and incredible reaction from the world press about her,” he says. “It wasn’t just about her being our mother, or being part of the McGarrigle sisters, but even about her own quirky view on things. There was a strong sense of a major accomplishment and legacy that I have to propagate.”
Bryan Borzykowski is a business and entertainment writer. Follow Metro Music on Twitter @TheMetroMusic
