I’ve been writing about Rufus’ Songs For Lulu, on and off, song for song for a week, and then I finished it off for five bucks , and I knew it would be a grower and I thought at some point it would stop growing and it hasn’t yet.
During an interview Wainwright mentioned writing the song in his head as he walked home from where his mother was hospitalized with cancer.
It reminded me of the much derided moment in the Tchaikovsky movie from the fifties (can’t remember what it’s called) where Tchaikovsky is riding on a sleigh and the 1812 overture comes to him in a fit of inspiration.
Like inspiration comes that way, right?
Well, according to Wainwright that’s exactly how inspiration: through the layers of sorrow and fear, it can arrive fully formed.
This is one of the reasons I am so in love with his new album: if it is all a little self-indulgent, he is self-indulgent to a point and if it is hit and miss both those that miss and those that hit are important.