New tunes. + let's get on with it.

Last week I bought my first physical CD in years (that is, not a downloaded purchase). I was in Target and needed a copy of Rufus Wainwright's Release the Stars ASAP. The album was no let down--jazzy, well orchestrated, and with witty lyrics. It grows on me with each listen.

You can listen to Going to a Town on his website. It's a melancholy tune where he sings "I'm going to a town that has already been burned down, I'm going to a place that has already been disgraced...I'm so tired of America." His smart lyrics are about our country's small-minded and conservative ways. To me it's reminiscent of Morrissey's 2004 "America is Not the World." I hear other traces of M's irony-laden pangs of the heart, like in Do I Disappoint You?

Rufus is one of the few artists who perpetuate the art of the full album (as opposed to single hits). And, in his longer-haired days, I was told we resembled one another ;) But then I recently found out he had a past meth addiction. Oh well. Check out his website anyway, you can catch a peek of him dressed in lederhosen!

Rufus speaking about the title track and a friend who didn't show at his recreation of Judy Garland's Carnegie Hall concert:

“It’s written about the idea that it’s time for both me and her -- and, let’s say, for all people in their thirties, our generation -- to let everything go and to love as much as possible and really be the best that you can be as a person. Now that we’re in our prime, having scaled the wall of adolescence, ridden on the train of our twenties, and been around, once you hit your thirties, the die is cast. It’s about action at this point; you have to fulfill your destiny or muddle into uselessness. That’s the essential message of the song and it is the message of the record: Now is the time to act on your desires and your dreams, to use your good side. Let’s get on with it.”

You can hear more of his songs on My Space. I do have to admit I needed to listen to Rufus many times before I got hooked...