Friend and musicologist Mitchell Morris and friend and composer Mark Carlson have had to put up with my obsession about Rufus Wainwright for the past several years. Mitchell encouraged me to write a paper about RW: “present it at musicological conference, let our community discover him.” So, I started writing an article, and it seemed like a good idea to sketch out an outline as well. I showed it to Mitchell, who looked at it and said: “Roger, this is not an article, it’s a book. You should write a book!”
Having just taught a graduate seminar in analyzing the late String Quartets by Beethoven, it occurred to me that a close reading about selected RW songs could be quite interesting. As someone (a Professor of music composition at UCLA) who loves teaching people how music works, it occurred to me that writing a book about RW’s music could be an effective way for people to learn how music works, but instead of studying Mozart or Beethoven, use RW as the subject. It would ideally serve two purposes: education non-musicians about musical form and structure thereby helping them to appreciate music in greater depth; and introducing Rufus Wainwright to the Classical Music community.
This is a tricky proposition, considering that musicians have a language to communicate about musical structure and meaning, and it’s one that is not always understandable to non-musicians. Musicologist Rob Walser encouraged me to write for an ideal reader. I realized that my ideal reader is one of my current students, Nick DePinna. Nick is a young composer who straddles the classical and pop/jazz worlds; he is also someone who is as passionate about RW’s music as I am. As Nick is a student, he wants to learn about compositional technique, as well as what makes music that he likes, work.
On the other hand, I joined the official (US) Rufus Wainwright bulletin board and met an enormous community of RW enthusiasts of all ages, educations, nationalities, and opinions. I realized that too much technical description might alienate these possible readers. I know many of them will look forward to reading this book to glean whatever they can about a songwriter they cherish so much.
My brother, Andrew Bourland, co-founder of ClickZ and guru of doing business on the internet, and my partner, Daniel Shiplacoff, both have encouraged me to create this blog in the interest of getting your feedback on this project.
I hope that gives you a good picture of my goals. It’s January 3, 2006. I’m hoping to finish the book in the next year or so. Contribute if you will.
Roger Bourland
Los Angeles
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Great idea! You’ve got yourself a sale already for when it’s published!
Sir,
First of all, let me say that I’m extremely happy to see that someone has decided to undertake an examination of Rufus Wainwright in booklength form. It has been too late in the making.
I’m not a musicologist, so I doubt that I can help you in significant way.
But, I do want to make a suggestion. One way that might open the book up to a wider audience is to consider a careful reading of his lyrics, which are themselves rather complicated.
I would imagine that the form/content balance that we find in poetry would apply, perhaps even more so, when set to music.
There are also themes in his lyrics that have evolved over time. I’ve considered writing a few articles on these as I see them more and more clearly. Since Want Two, for example, I’ve become more and more convinced that RW is struggling to claim an orthodox spirituality on behalf of the gay community and, even, to argue that homosexuals somehow are more fit for the spiritual life.
So, there’s so stuff for you to ponder.
Please let me know if I can help.
Theodore Warner
twarner@richmond.com
A musician friend of mine gave me Want 2 for Christmas in 2004. I admired the CD cover, the artwork, had a giggle over this rather pretty young man dressed as a medieval damsel and put it in my player for its first listen.
It was a shock to my ears and I had to repeatedly play it from the first. Then I found the songs with me when I would wake in the morning. I had to have more.
I bought the other CDs and was so absolutely delighted, finally, in this noisy world of rap and hip hop . . .and country western music . . . I had found something new that drew me in. Songs that I could dream over and wonder about. So many new bands that come out with great things are compared to the Beatles, but it really was a similar feeling for me . . . that I had discovered something on a par with the Beatles again.
But not just the Beatles. I hear bits of opera, snippets of Tin Pan Alley, disco, Stephen Foster, Stevie Wonder . . . beautiful layered music that lets me hear something new every time. And so much of it doesn’t seem to fit the standard format for pop music; verse, bridge, maybe an errant guitar solo, verse, fade-out. This music rambles, it changes tone, it leads the listener where it didn’t expect to go. And that is wonderful.
I agree Valkyrie: all my early training in the 60s was not from Classical composers, but from the Beatles. There is a resonance with them that I hear as well. I plan to devote a chapter in the first part of the book to his perceived influences.
Influences are funny things: we are not always aware of them ourselves. Sometimes they are conscious influences, and sometimes unconscious.
Theodore, thank you for your comments. I had originally not planned on discussing textual issues in the book but as it’s gone along I don’t see how I can ignore them. There are some lyrics that are self evident, and some downright obscure.
I will also devote a chapter to explicit and implicit queer issues. I have a first draft of that chapter but will likely revisit it after I finish the analytic essays. I haven’t planned any discussion of spiritual issues at this point, but we’ll see.
Are you planning to get an interview with Rufus himself to include in the book? Surely if you inform his management of what you’re planning to publish, you may be able to get a phone interview or something to hear from the man himself anything you can’t find elsewhere?
Rufus has done so many interviews in his life that most of my questions have already been asked and answered. I will send a draft of the book to him through Alfred Publishing when I finish it for any comments.
I will be able to write this book and include musical examples and have online music playback of them, without his permission through fair use copyright laws. I would love to have his blessings to include my transcriptions of his piano songs in the book.
As much as I might want to insist that readers listen to the CDs in order to understand my essays, many will want to sit down at the piano, crash through it and sing it themselves. This will never happen only listening to the CD. His songs deserve to exist beyond his performance.
Good luck with the book. What attracted me to Rufus was the breadth of his canvas and the tools that he is blessed with to express his music. Having grown up with Irish traditional music and been particularly attracted to the “slow airs” which draw from the pool of this country’s pain, I hear definite echoes in Rufus. Worth exploring?
Baelbocht
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