I’m pretty much alone among my family and friends in my adoration of Rufus Wainwright. Some don’t like his voice, some don’t like his music… some don’t like his voice or his music.
Me, I love it all. He’s far and away one of my favorite artists working today. Over the course of five albums, he has produced more songs that hit me where I live than just about anybody in my collection.
This is one of those situations where the Internet comes in handy. Nobody I know likes Wainwright, but I can log on to any number of Web sites and find scores of fans even more obsessed than me… people who get him the way I get him. Not that that connection is something I crave, but it’s nice to know it’s there.
So it’s with that extended Rufus family in mind that I highlight one of his songs today, fully aware that it will likely be picked apart by those close to me. 🙂
‘Going to a Town’ is a track off Wainwright’s most recent album, Release the Stars. It’s one of the only overtly political songs Wainwright has written, though it doesn’t get very specific in its attacks. It’s essentially about the weariness that eight years of George W. Bush has inspired, and the desire to escape what this great country has become.
One of the specific attacks is characteristically aimed at homophobes:
(Tell me) and not for thinking everything that you’ve done is good
(I really need to know) after soaking the body of Jesus Christ in blood
I’m so tired of America
I love that Wainwright is never remotely afraid of going big in his music, but he’s also an expert at going delicate. I picked this song because he does a bit of both.
Meet Me In Montauk 
I am not one of your family members who dislikes Rufus. I actually appreciate his talent a great deal, though I do admit that I am at times turned off by his voice. I think this is a very good song, but again, I wonder if my appreciation would increase if it were covered by another artist. Have his songs been covered? I would be curious to hear those.
I don’t know if any of his songs have been officially covered. I found a ton of fan covers on YouTube but that could be scary.
He does a lot of covers himself… some of us actually consider his voice a draw and not a detriment!
Well, I don’t consider his voice a draw. I like some of his stuff despite his voice. He certainly has a technically proficient voice, but I feel he often oversings–so he enters into the arena of the “big voices” that I generally don’t like, except where he suffers even further is that, while his voice is strong, it is also incredibly nasal and whiny. He fares better when his songs are more up tempo (like Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk), leaving him less room to hold his whiny, nasal notes. But even in Cigarrettes, and this song toward the end as well, he can’t help but sustain the notes to a point of nasal excess.
Nasal excess… sounds like a serious medical condition. 🙂
He definitely likes to hold his notes, but again, that’s something I like a lot, nasal excess and all.