Rufus Wainwright
Rufus Wainwright
Rufus McGarrigle Wainwrightis an American-Canadian singer-songwriter and composer. He has recorded seven albums of original music and numerous tracks on compilations and film soundtracks. He has also written a classical opera and set Shakespeare sonnets to music for a theater piece by Robert Wilson...
NationalityCanadian
ProfessionOpera Singer
Date of Birth22 July 1973
CityRhinebeck, NY
CountryCanada
believe age alive
I'm very much a romantic. I'm highly attuned to an older sensibility, which I believe is alive and well. We're not that far ahead of the Romantic Age in society.
art worry hook
I'll be honest, I worry sometimes about what I've done. I have tied my whole person to my art and, whatever it takes to get that hook, I will go there and do it.
song philosophy volition
To me, songs come of their own volition - and with an open-ended philosophy.
powerful love-is winning
That will to love is very powerful. But it doesn't always win.
couple teeth syrup
My love of maple syrup. I've been known to knock back a can over a couple days: A swig here, a swig there, and next thing you know it's gone. It's a habit I have to stave off. I don't want to lose all my teeth.
mean thinking ideas
I just think it's better to have ideas. I mean, you can change an idea. Changing a belief is trickier, people die for them, people kill for them.
views care want
Putting all of my time In learning to care And a bucket of rhymes I threw up somewhere Want a locket of who Made me lose my perfunctory view Of all that is around And of all that I do.
daughter years three
I have a three-year-old daughter, which makes me more environmentally conscious. For me, it's about the future.
way eras fans
I'm a big fan of the Pre-Raphaelites. Millais, Edward Burne-Jones, and I realised recently that my music is Pre-Raphaelite in a certain way, in that it reinvents an older era and romanticises it, puts it in this gilded frame.
couple chocolate stronger
Cigarettes and chocolate milk These are just a couple of my cravings Everything it seems I like's a little bit stronger A little bit thicker A little bit harmful for me.
believe smell hammers
And you will believe in love And all that it's supposed to be But just until the fish start to smell And you're struck down by a hammer.
real opera today
Opera needs to be a total escape from real life. To relate to what we're going through today is fine and dandy, but it's really about being transported and completely swept away by a romantic notion.
eye smell want
I don't want to hold you and feel so helpless I don't want to smell you and lose my senses And smile in slow motion With eyes in love.
song play knowing
The song is about knowing the end result of every situation you're in, and being able to play it out in your mind and see it before it happens. It's about addiction, really, about knowing how it's all going to end up. In that sense, you're watching a movie of yourself all the time - and then you want out of that movie.