TRACK REVIEW: Rufus Wainwright - Only the People That Love

TRACK REVIEW:

Rufus Wainwright

PHOTO CREDIT: Vincent Tullo for The New York Times

Only the People That Love

9.5/10

The track, Only The People That Love, is available from:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQDYxTLMRhA

GENRE:

Singer-Songwriter

ORIGIN:

New York, U.S.A.

The album, Unfollow the Rules, is available here:

https://www.roughtrade.com/gb/rufus-wainwright/unfollow-the-rules

RELEASE DATE:

10th July, 2020

LABEL:

BMG Rights Management (US) LLC

PRODUCER:

Mitchell Froom

TRACKLIST:

Trouble in Paradise

Damsel in Distress

Unfollow the Rules

You Ain't Big

Romantical Man

Peaceful Afternoon

Only the People That Love

This One's for the Ladies (That Lunge!)

My Little You

Early Morning Madness

Hatred

Alone Time

__________

FOR this review…

PHOTO CREDIT: Suki Dhanda/The Observer

I wanted to write about Rufus Wainwright, because he is an artist I have liked for a long time. This year has been a brilliant one for music and, with a new album out, Rufus Wainwright has just added to that bounty. Unfollow the Rules is out, and it is one of the best albums from Wainwright’s career so far. I have a few things to cover off before I get to a song from the album, as there are quite a lot of different angles one can approach Wainwright from. As we are still locked down, gigs have not really been able to happen, and many artists have adapted by providing live music from their homes - I have seen photos on Facebook of Wainwright performing gigs. This article from GQ from earlier in the year talked about Wainwright’s intimate home gigs:

“With a career spanning more than two decades, eight albums, opera, Shakespeare and more epic covers than we care to count (remember his rendition of “Hallelujah”?), Rufus Wainwright has been a mainstay of the music scene since releasing his eponymous debut in 1998. He’s had his personal struggles – Elton John, who once called him “the greatest songwriter on the planet”, helped him get to rehab in 2004 – but now, aged 46, Wainwright says he’s never been better.

The son of folk icons Kate McGarrigle and Loudon Wainwright III, the singer-songwriter has been playing the piano since before he can remember and is famed for his legendary live shows. Now, Wainwright is bringing some of that same magic into the homes of fans across the world, performing a song a day on IGTV for the duration of coronavirus self-isolation”.

I think you can still see those gigs online, but Wainwright has been coping well under lockdown. I guess one does not have too much choice, but it has been an especially tough time for artists – who are used to being in front of crowds and are usually very busy at this time of year. It is a challenging time, and there are a few approaches artists can take. Many are avoiding the subject of COVID-19 when it comes to their own music; others are tackling it and mixing it right in there. Rufus Wainwright is someone, as it told Riff Magazine, who feels one to confront the subject:

“He feels strongly that artists need to be writing about what’s going on rather than avoiding it, even if it’s challenging.

“I think any creative person who doesn’t use this time to work and to kind of try to process what’s happening is not really an artist, to be honest,” he said. “The world needs to understand what’s happening. People, I think, are craving a kind of release, but also sort of a sort of poetic frame to view this in. When I say poetic, I don’t mean like fuzzy and nice. I mean something that they can meditate on”.

Of course, with lockdown, there have been stresses that every artist has felt. Many had been planning on putting an album out, but they have had to hold it back. Others have released albums early to give fans something to feel positive about, but Wainwrights was intending to release Unfollow the Rules earlier this year. I guess there is not a lot one can do about it, but he must have been disappointed having to hold back the album. When he spoke with The Current back in May, he reacted to the fact that his album would have to be delayed:

“So, Rufus, we've been phoning up various musicians to check in during this crisis. So off the bat, I'll say, how are you doing?

I'm very grateful for everything that I have. I mean, on the negative side, I've had to push the release of my album, Unfollow The Rules, to July 10. It was originally going to be out last week. But, we kept putting out tracks every day on Instagram and I'm working on other projects so there's a lot I can do in the meantime....and also in preparation. I also have a very nice home in the Hollywood Hills and I'm with my wonderful husband and beautiful daughter and, and our health is very good. We've known people who have been, you know, badly affected by this disease. A couple of friends have died and so we're familiar with where it can go. But all in all, I think I'm just incredibly grateful for all that I have and, and I also feel very remorseful for how it's gonna pan out for really the majority of the population because most people are going to lose their jobs or serious setbacks in their prospects. And so it's gonna be a rough, rough road but I think I'm gonna be okay.

And it's good to hear that and it's very heartening to hear the story of the balanced, mixed emotions that we all have. And I'm like this so I get that too. Before we chat about the new record and all of the complications they're in with pushing it back. I'm curious, does your daughter...if she's like my kids right now, is she playing a lot of video games?

It's funny because she's nine years old and there was a debate at one point when she got a computer and I always leaned on sort of the 12-year-old mark, which I know is probably a little later than most parents, but I was really kind of gunning for that. But you know, as soon as this occurred, this whole pandemic, you know, all of that went out the window. She has two computers now. One for school and one for us. And also we share custody with her mother. So, she goes back and forth. So, anyway, she has two computers and you know, she's communicating with her friends. She's not into video games, so much so. So we're kind of spared that. But yes, technology is definitely full-fledged into our child's life, which is a necessity”.

I wanted to include that question about Wainwright’s daughter, as that is something I will return to a bit later. I think, in spite of everything, Wainwright is doing okay right now. Lockdown has not been ideal or easy for anyone, but Wainwright has made it work. I have read a few interviews with Wainwright, and he has been very positive and looking forward. I want to sprinkle in interviews ahead of the review I am going to do, as I feel it is important to get a fuller picture of the artist. Just before lockdown happened, Rufus Wainwright spoke with The Independent, and he reflected on his situation in life and a new sense of domestic bliss:

“But look at him now. At 46, with a career spanning eight studio albums and two operas, Wainwright – now based in LA with his husband, German art director Jörn Weisbrodt – has a full head of dark, glossy hair and a carefully groomed beard the colour of burnished silver. I struggle to find anything but the faintest of laughter lines around the corners of his eyes, which are grey-green and set beneath expressive, copper-coloured eyebrows. I’m actually annoyed at how clear his skin is.

He’s feeling great, too. “What I’m realising right now is that in your forties, there’s this wonderful movement if you’ve taken care of yourself, which I have,” he says, sprawled on a sofa at his publicist’s office in St John’s Wood, London. “I’ve worked on that – I got off the highway and here I am, in this very sweet spot. You know death is coming, you can sense it. But you’re in good health, you’re still vaguely attractive, one of your parents is alive, people buy tickets to your shows, and your husband’s still gorgeous.” The forties are where it’s at, apparently, I say. He chuckles: “That’s because I’m here”.

There is a lot of positivity surrounding Rufus Wainwright, even if his album has been delayed but, now that it is out, he has been conducting interviews, and you can tell that he is relieved people get to hear Unfollow the Rules in full. Whilst Wainwright is satisfied about his life in general, I think there is this fear he has about America and where it is headed. You can hear that in some songs on the album; the sense that things are heading in the wrong direction and, under Donald Trump, America is becoming corrupted and poisoned. In terms of his attitudes towards Trump, Rufus Wainwright made it pretty clear in a recent interview with NME:

“Can you see America going down another path?

“You know, it’s funny. I was at a socially-distanced Fourth Of July thing the other day and speaking to an older French gentleman and lives in California. I asked him if he’d move back to Europe if Trump wins and the pandemic gets worse, and he said, ‘No, I love America. This is where my life is’. I was reminded of the fact that this is a great country and there are so many things about this place that are still very unique and special. Being that this is an election year and we need to go out and fight for this democracy, I feel that there’s something to fight for”.

With lockdown mentality and the Black Lives Matter protests, would you say there’s been a spike iempathy in America?

“There has, but I must say that it’s impossible to minimise the ineptitude and pure evil of this administration – in terms of just not caring about anybody’s lives. At first they said it was only the old, the sick and the dying who were at risk. Now they’re saying, ‘Well, if young people get it then they won’t die’. These kids are going to have scarred lungs. The amount of what I can’t describe as anything other than evil in our government is pretty breathtaking.”

The track ‘Hatred’ from your new album is pretty on-the-nose about dethroning Trump. Will you be playing that with a renewed passion when you tour again?

“Yes. There will be a residual trauma from this. However I’m in good health, everyone I know is, I live in sunny California, I have an album coming out, people interested in my work, there are projects on the horizon, so I feel very fortunate”.

Later this year, Americans will be able to vote and, hopefully, elect a new President. It is a hard time for everyone, and I think that Trump has made things a lot worse. The public can make a difference and, when they take to the ballot, make a change in America. It is no surprise that Wainwright and so many of his peers are so fired up regarding Trump and his ineptitude. In an interview with The Independent, he talked about making a change through voting and turning the tide:

“At the end of Unfollow the Rules, there’s a wildcard of a track called “Hatred”. It throws you out of the groove of the previous songs, gathering speed as the piano and violin race one another before colliding into a dystopian space-opera. All as Wainwright sings in that rare tenor, with its strange tipsy beauty, as though he’s only just mustering the strength to sound the words.

“I want people to listen to that song, then go and vote,” he says, referring to the forthcoming 2020 presidential race. He supported Barack Obama in the 2008 and 2012 elections, then Hillary Clinton. “I think it’s going to get really wild.”

He feels there’s a sense of discouragement around this election, which is “troubling”. Hope scares him. “Someone once told me, on a Greek island in the middle of the night, that hope is the same thing as fear,” he says. “They are synonymous. I stay away from hope, for now, but I am emboldened nonetheless to fight”.

PHOTO CREDIT: V. Tony Hauser

I want to veer in a slightly different direction, as Wainwright has been tackling other musical avenues over the past few years, particularly Opera. When I listen to Rufus Wainwright’s albums, I always get this sense of the operatic and dramatic. Wainwright’s voice is tremendous, and he can make even the most tender songs seem absolutely beautiful and sweeping. Unfollow the Rules is Wainwright’s first ‘Pop’ album in a long time. Although the worlds of Opera and Classical have been in his life for a while, as he explained to Riff Magazine, they can be very tough indeed:

“Wainwright has spent much of the past decade away from the pop music world, concentrating on his first love—opera. He composed his first opera, “Prima Donna,” in 2009 and it was performed in London, New York, Paris, Buenos Aires and Hong Kong. His second, “Hadrian,” based on the relationship between Hadrian and a lover, premiered in 2018 in Toronto.

In 2016, he released an album of nine Shakespearean sonnets set to music. Although he wouldn’t share specifics, he said he’s also now working on a ballet project: “Rufus is going to the ballet very soon.”

He said he left the pop world behind because he had grown bored of it and the industry, which consisted of repetitive album cycles. But eventually, he was ready to return to his bread and butter.

“Having been away and also worked in the classical music world, which is incredibly brutal and very, very demanding and kind of poisonous at times, it gave me a new appreciation of the pop world and really made me kind of fall back in love with where I came from, which was the songwriting realm,” he said. “I think that this album kind of has … a freshness to it that I think rubs off”.

In order to get a fuller sense of Rufus Wainwright as an artist and human, I think one has to mention family – which is very important to him. The more I have read about Rufus Wainwright this week – when researching his new album – the more I have learned about his family.

I wanted to bring in a section from a review with The Independent, because we learn more about his daughter, Viva, and how his mother, Kate McGarrigle encouraged him to have a child – and how his daughter inspired the title of the album:

“The new album title suits Wainwright perfectly, but it was actually his nine-year-old daughter, Viva, who came up with it. (“She just walked into the living room and stated to everyone she would like to unfollow the rules, and then promptly marched out. I immediately took my quill and scribbled it down.”) She was conceived during a tumultuous time in Wainwright’s life, when his mother was dying of cancer. Viva’s mother is Lorca Cohen, daughter of Leonard Cohen, meaning she is heir to a rather extraordinary musical dynasty (Weisbrodt is “deputy dad”).

McGarrigle had actively encouraged Wainwright to have a child, having apparently “caught wind” of his growing broodiness – “I think she knew she was on her way out and she wanted me to have someone,” he says with a smile. “The other thing was the thought of having a Wainwright-Cohen union was kind of formidable.” It was Lorca’s idea to have a child together, he says. “She was the driving force behind it, and I thank her every day for that. I’m really, really indebted to her.”

Since Viva was born, Wainwright’s relationship with his own father, songwriter Loudon Wainwright III, has shifted dramatically. “We had periods where we almost killed each other,” he says. “I wish I was speaking figuratively but it was pretty hairy at times.” He says they’ve had therapy together, but also thinks Viva has given him a new perspective of “what it’s like when your kid refutes you, or doesn’t want to give you a hug, or is lost in their own world”.

“It’s frightening as a parent,” he says. “[My father and I] were hanging out not too long ago, just a couple of years ago, we went for this walk and then at the end of the walk I said: ‘You know dad, being a dad now myself, I’m aware of how wonderful it is when a child voluntarily hugs their parent. Yeah, so I’m going to do that to you now.’ And I gave him a big hug and a kiss, and I think it was a good move”.

I can only imagine what it was like for Rufus Wainwright when it came to his relationship with his dad. Those years when they were not getting along sound pretty brutal. I just want to end this pre-review section with a section I found in an interview from inews, where Wainwright talked about his experiences of coming out and how, as a parent, some of his dad’s DNA has rubbed off on him:

“The musician, who came out to his parents at 18, has also inherited some of his father’s piercing honesty and doesn’t hold back on how much luckier (but also, in certain respects, less lucky) people coming out today are.

“I think coming out these days is a double-edged sword in the sense that it’s easier – which is essentially a good thing – and young people very much benefit from the information that’s out there and the community that’s ready to embrace them,” he says”.

PHOTO CREDIT: V. Tony Hauser

The opening to Only the People That Love is an acoustic guitar strum that moves into a drum crackle. There is that blend of grace and passion, that then leads to one of Rufus Wainwright’s most tender-yet-stately vocals. Every song Wainwright sings is gorgeous and affecting, but I wanted to focus on this track as I really love the vocal performance! “Only the people that love, may dream/In the world of the silent scream/Only the people that love/Mean gotta love mean” is the opening, and one is affected and stopped in their tracks by Wainwright. Backed by the beat of the drum – which is like a heartbeat and is more punctuating than it is accelerated – and acoustic strum, the vocal is sublime. The richness of his voice and the emotion pouring out is truly stunning. In terms of the song’s meaning, I am not sure whether it is motivated by a desire in his life, or whether it is a message to the people. The chorus arrives, and our hero sings about “Go on and do it/Love mean go ahead and do it/Love means go on and say it/Love means go ahead and say it”. The words to the chorus are delivered at a faster pace than the verse, but when he gets to the line “Love means go ahead and say it/Everything”, he holds that final word, and trembles under its weight. It is a powerful moment, and I love how Wainwright elongates various words and the affinity he has for language! One could read his lyrics and deliver them in a way that would not affect people as much as they should but, in Wainwright’s hands, every line is given importance and power. Maybe Wainwright has been reacting to the state of the world and how, in America, there seems to be more division than ever.

One cannot help but be impacted by how things are right now and, as well as campaigning for change, a sense of unity and tolerance is needed. Even though Unfollow the Rules is not a Classical or Opera album, you can definitely feel something operatic in the music! It is hard to explain, but Wainwright goes beyond the realms of Pop and Rock – or whatever genres you would class his music as -, and provides something that is almost like a work of art. “Only the people that love may cry/In the world of eternal goodbye/Everyone else oughta just die/Gotta love die, 'cause” is an intriguing passage, and one that got me thinking as to its origins. I have listened to Only the People That Love a few times, and I just drift away when hearing the track. Maybe it is the simplicity and power of Wainwright’s words and the possibilities they hold; perhaps it is that voice and the feelings it stirs inside someone! “Love dies, go on and do it/Love dies, go ahead and do it/Love dies, go on and say it/Love dies, go ahead and say it with your eyes/Go on and do it/Go ahead and do it/Go on and say it/Go ahead and say it/Don't be shy” is a verse one cannot help be moved by, not just because of the current situation and the extra strain on us all, but how meaningfully the words are sung. Wainwright’s voice is this extraordinary instrument that reaches deep into he heart and really makes an impact! In the chorus, where he says that only people who love will fly, I think that is a message that we can all get behind now! Only the People is a song that you will want to hear a few times round, as it is very moving and contains one of Rufus Wainwright’s standout vocals. It is a tremendous song from a truly incredible album.

In some ways, live music is starting to come back. There are socially-distanced gigs, and there is this transition period where we are getting a sense of normality back. It will be a while until venues can open and festivals start back up, but it is good that gigs can restart in some form. When Wainwright spoke to The Current, he was asked about the prospect of returning to the road and the type of show he might deliver:

“So as we're looking ahead to, at some point, when all of this subsides, you'll get back out on the road again. What sort of show do you have put together? Have you assembled exactly what you want the speed show to look like? What can we expect when you get back out?

I mean, I have an incredible band, who I feel terrible about having to let go for the meantime. We had a whole bunch of shows set up all over the world and those are not looking like they're going to happen but I will subsequently, you know, get them back when I can. I really felt for this album, Unfollow the Rules, that essentially, because it's a return to California and a return to my roots, musically, you know, from in terms of when I started my career 20 years ago. I was really focused on the songwriting and really focused on the kind of musicianship of all involved. I really wanted this tour to be somewhat streamed, slimmed down in the sense [that] it's really about the music and about me as an artist and kind of devoid of some of the more, you know, theatrical shenanigans, which I adore, and which will return. But for this project, I wanted it to be very, very kind of, you know, basic, essentially just about the songs”.

I urge people to and get Unfollow the Rules, as it is one of the best of Wainwright’s career. Whilst lockdown is not ideal, I think he has taken to it okay, and he has definitely kept himself busy! Going forward, I wonder whether Wainwright will return to Opera in some form, or whether he has another album similar to Unfollow the Rules in him. It will be exciting to see, as I think Rufus Wainwright is one of the most astonishing songwriter around. I shall leave things here, only to say go and get the new album and support a musician who…