Song of the Day #298: ‘Foolish Love’ – Rufus Wainwright

rufusOK, folks… it’s time for all my faithful readers to run screaming. I hope this week’s blog entries reach beyond my usual audience, because I’ve found that I am very much alone in my love of Rufus Wainwright.

Alone in my circle of family and friends, that is. Out there on the interwebs, of course, there are legions of people just like me, people who swoon at the romanticism and theatricality of a man who’s a little Cole Porter, a little Puccini, a little Michael Stipe… and all Rufus.

And yes, I’m secure enough in my sexuality to admit to swooning over a flamboyantly gay man. What of it?

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Song of the Day #121: ‘Sanssouci’ – Rufus Wainwright

rufusliveAmong the many things I adore about Rufus Wainwright is how unabashedly gay his lyrics are.

It seems the openly gay artists in my collection usually write in the third person or make clever use of pronouns. I’ve been scanning Indigo Girls lyrics for awhile now and I’ve yet to find a love song of theirs that couldn’t be written for a man.

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Song of the Day #70: ‘Going to a Town’ – Rufus Wainwright

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.

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