Rufus Wainwright

0:08Welcome to This Cultural Life, the series in which some of the world's leading artistic figures choose the most significant influences and experiences that have inspired their own creativity. I'm John Wilson, and my guest in this episode is the singer-songwriter and composer Rufus Wainwright. Renowned for his distinctive voice and the theatricality of his performances, he was born into a family of acclaimed folk musicians. His mother was Kate McGarrigal, and his father is the singer-songwriter Loudon Wainwright III. Since his debut in 1998, his 11 studio albums have been characterised by their candid autobiographical themes, with songs about addiction, sexuality and fraught family dynamics.

0:48He's also worked as a classical composer with his operas Prima Donna and Hadrian and a choral work called Dream Requiem. As a performer, he's created musical tributes to Judy Garland, Shakespeare's sonnets, the songs of Kurt Weill and, most recently, her stage symphonic versions of his much-loved Want albums.

1:29Rufus Wainwright, welcome to This Cultural Life. Thanks for having me. You were born in New York and moved to Montreal with your mother, I think when you were three years old after your parents divorced. as the son of two very illustrious musicians and coming from a big musical dynasty. Are your earliest memories all musical, do you think? I must admit, yes. Not like every musician, shall we say, because a lot of people I knew who grew up in musical families, they didn't necessarily play music all the time. It wasn't integral in their home life. But in my home, it was. I mean, my mother, Kate McGarrigal, she was totally, almost addicted to playing the piano and singing.

2:14Wouldn't it be nice to walk together Bearing our souls while wearing out the leather And whenever a guest would come for the evening, she'd be curious about what kind of voice they had and what songs they knew. And then when we go up to the country to see our grandmother, She kind of demanded a floor show of her grandchildren. And so there was a lot of music growing up in our household. Did you sing together as a child with your mother? Oh, yeah, no, we sang a lot, especially French folk songs and Irish folk songs. Yeah. The Minstrel Boy, stuff like that. So she was from sort of an Irish... Irish-French.

2:58Irish-French family. Yeah, and she really was both, and therefore had both of those traditions firmly embedded. And were you performing for people? Was she encouraging her from a young age? She would, yeah. As children, when we were at parties or she had parties, we'd always have to sing. Later on, even when I was a teenager and in my early 20s, if I went out with my mother to a club, like a jazz club or something, she would make sure to try to get me on stage, wherever it was, even if it was in Cincinnati or whatever. She loved to kind of show off her kids. Her performing partner was her sister, wasn't it?

3:34Yes, yes. Anna McGarrick. Yes, Anna. I think I changed my mind after one when they're as to who in the end got the better to be. So it is kind of part of the family tradition that you all get together and it's a communal activity. It is, but I must say, sadly, my other aunt, Jane, the oldest, she passed away not too long ago. Anna's the only one remaining though she's amazing musically one of the greats but she's not as sort of gung-ho about it my mother was incessant she was really the driving force behind everybody getting up and singing and even though at the time I thought it was like my family and so forth, it was really her

4:21On This Cultural Life, Rufus Wainwright my guests choose the most important influences and experiences that have inspired their own creativity. And your first choice for this programme is the movie The Wizard of Oz.

4:35Somewhere over the rainbow, way apart. When did you first see it? Yeah, well, I can't remember when I first saw it because I'm of a certain age and when I was about four or three, The Wizard of Oz was a yearly event on TV. in North America. I think it was always around Easter or something. So the whole family would gather around and watch The Wizard of Oz every year. And it just, you know, totally transfixed me, and I was obsessed with it to this day. I mean, I even, you know, would dress up as Dorothy or The Wicked Witch, depending on my mood. What was it about the film that you loved most? Was it the drama, the visual spectacle, or was it Judy Garland?

5:20Well, you know, I think... Look, obviously Judy Garland was the central fixation, and her voice and the music. If happy little bluebirds fly beyond the rainbow, why, oh, why can't I? But I do feel that there was a kind of, the sense of home, the sense of being lost and not knowing where home is, is so powerful for a small child because they can relate to it so viscerally. You know, if they're even lost for like 10 minutes, it's like they've gone to Oz, you know, in a lot of ways. Did you have that sense of dislocation having moved to Montreal from New York? There was definitely a kind of... My sister Martha and I were children of divorce, as are a lot of people of our age, and it was an incredibly traumatic experience.

6:15And even only later in life I realised how deep it was. I always, you know, in terms of divorce, I always kind of blamed my dad early on because he was the one who kind of initiated it. But then as I got older and now especially, I realized everybody was damaged by that. My father, my mother, the kids, everybody. Not that it shouldn't have happened because there was a reason for divorce. But yes, but I think with The Wizard of Oz, there was this kind of lost in space kind of thing that I could relate to. Forget your troubles, come on, get happy. We're going to chase all your cares away. Shout hallelujah, come on, get happy.

6:59We're heading for the judgment day. The sun is shining, come on, get happy. In 2006, you performed a Judy Garland tribute concert, a series of concerts, at Carnegie Hall, where she had performed in 1961, that famous recording of her. What was the catalyst for that show? Was it a very long-held ambition? No, not at all. Well, you know, it's funny because obviously I've been a fan of Judy Garland's for many years. And I loved her movies. I loved her kind of radio recordings. I also kind of loved some of her drugged out home tapes that she made of herself. I loved all of that. But I'd never, ever really listened to her music, to the famous album that she did at Carnegie Hall.

7:44I'd heard about it. I knew it existed. But I always kind of kept it aside. Not for any particular reason. I almost feel like it was fate was saying to me, like, hold off on that record. And then, lo and behold, you know, around the time of when the United States invaded Iraq after 9-11, you know, I went out and got it and started listening to it and was, of course, overwhelmed by its brilliance and became totally obsessed with it. So this is like in my late 20s or something. Why do you associate it with the invasion of Iraq? Well, the reason is that it was around the time when I wrote Going to a Town, I'm So Tired of America.

8:18I'm going to a town that has already been burnt down. I'm going to a place that has already been disgraced. I'm going to see some folks who have already been let down. I'm so tired of America. I was thinking of leaving the United States. I couldn't really at that point. And I just felt, you know, disgusted with the country. And which is, you know, no comment on now, or is a comment on now, sadly. But anyways, so that, and then whenever I put the album on Judy's 1961 concert, I was reminded of how great the United States could be. It gave me a sense of the past brilliance and genius of the U.S.

9:16and how there are positive aspects that we must, you know, try to rescue at all costs. The stars have lost their glitter. The winds grow colder. Suddenly you're older. And all because of the man. That got away

9:47What did you hear in that performance, in that recording? Well, for me it's really mainly about the songs. It's just such a great set list. And the lyrics. I've always been a big fan of the American Songbook and that whole concept of, you know, you had lyricists and songwriters and so each department was fully flushed out. I don't know, they're just all incredibly well-crafted works of art. And then, of course, her incredible comeback, because she was kind of written off before the show, and she had experienced such tremendous medical issues, and then suddenly she came roaring back. And I could relate to that, because I'd had my ins and outs with the dark world of addiction and so forth.

10:31Well, I was going to ask you about that, because, of course, you wouldn't have known any of those aspects of Judy Garland's life when you saw The Wizard of Oz as a child. No. But later on, you had your own battles with addiction. You came through the other side. Did you identify with Judy then in all those troubles, the addiction, and then having this sort of almost kind of triumphant moment on the stage? Yeah. You could see something of yourself in that. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. No, I mean, I think what was very important to me when I did those concerts first, it was important that I was totally sober for the whole process and that it wasn't, you know, fueled by anything other than, you know, rest and, you know, work and blood, sweat and tears.

11:13Was there a moment when you knew you had a problem that you had to get yourself clean? I mean, yeah, there were a couple. But I mean, it was kind of a wake up moment rather than a series of... It was just, I had never known anything else. You know, I started drinking and going to bars when I was 13. So it was just, I didn't really know any other kind of lifestyle. Your 2003 album Want One was written and recorded after I think you'd left rehab. The opening song on that album, the first track, is called Oh What A World. Why am I always on a plane or a fast train? Oh, what a world my parents gave me always

12:00Travelling But not in love And those are the words uttered by the Wicked Witch of the West as she melts in the Wizard of Oz when she's had the bucket of water thrown over. And then in the concert, the WANT concerts, I would get the whole band and myself to dress up as the Wicked Witch with just a cape and a hat and we would all melt at the end of the song. So that was a reference to the film then? You know, you're bringing it up now. I'm a little shocked because it's not ringing the biggest bell in terms of I knew that that was the case, but I'm pretty sure I did. You know, come on, it's what she's saying when she's melting.

12:37So I must have known. Want is a hugely ambitious and complex album, lyrically and musically. Was it written over a period of time or in a really concerted burst of energy? No, it was both. I write all the time. It's become kind of a bodily function for me, not to be too glamorous. And so I get up every day and I play piano. I try to play at least one or two hours in the morning. So I've always been incredibly prolific. I think certainly with the way that my life was before I recorded Want, I was just out every night experiencing all sorts of crazy things. Luckily, I wanted to translate it into song.

13:22And so I got the material. Almost lost my life in the process, but I got the material. So the songs are reflection on moments, on episodes leading up to that period? Yeah. I mean, they're people, they're places. I am a confessional songwriter. I mean, I just write about what's going on in my life, whatever, whenever, however. I mean, in fact, one of my great realizations of late, and almost like in a bit of a sad way is that I've become a huge fan of Randy Newman in the last few years. I knew who he was, but I wasn't aware of how deep his catalogue was at that time. But I really kind of fell into it a few years ago, and I was shocked when I found out that none of his songs are about his life.

14:09They're complete constructs. They're all character studies. Yeah, they're all character studies. And stories. and I was like, I didn't have to write about my dad or my mom or my sister or me or this love affair, you know, and it was with a tinge of sadness that I at least hadn't had the choice because I really always felt like you had to write about what was going on in your life because everyone around me did it that way, which is the way it was, and I probably would have chosen to do that anyways. But having written and recorded that album over 20 years ago And so many of those songs are incredibly personal, as you say, about your family, about lovers, situations.

14:49You are performing that album again at the moment in a symphonic setting. How does it feel looking back at this? Does it bring those situations back? Does it sort of teleport you back into a different period of your life? I think this song for me that's especially poignant is Tenor at Eight, which I wrote about my dad, Loudon. No matter how strong, I'm gonna take you down with one little stone. I'm gonna break you down and see what you're worth, what you're really worth to me.

15:37The trajectory of that piece of music has been quite fascinating because, you know, really, it started off as a visceral kind of response and anger to something that occurred between us. And then I forgot about the song for a couple of years. And then when it came time to make one, it sort of magically reappeared. I was like, oh, I think there's this song I wrote about my dad. And then when I recorded it, I realized it was actually like a love song. You know, it was about I was more about trying to get to connect again and and for those people that don't know the song Just the scenario which is played out is that you've had this fraught relationship with your father loud and way not the third and then there was a I think it was a joint interview in Rolling Stone Yeah, we had a photo shoot him for Rolling Stone and I I was probably drunk And and and being you know pretty cocky and I just sort of Said to him oh dad how does it feel to have your son?

16:27and bring you back into the rock and roll world. And he took offense at it. Were you surprised? Was I surprised? I was surprised at how angry he was. Like, I'd really hit a nerve. There's a line in the song, I'm going to take you down with one little stone. Yeah, yeah. The rolling stone. Yeah. That's wordplay. Yes, yes, that is true. God, you're picking up on all the Freudian placements. Can I just ask you, that's really interesting, that you're suggesting that you don't realize these references as you're writing. No, I don't. They're subconscious. Yeah, they are. I'm unfortunately or fortunately very much ruled by my subconscious, which can be wonderful and also harrowing for all those around me.

17:09So within that song, you recount the tensions over dinner at eight. Yeah, the dinner at eight that went south. But then now when I sing it, I'm a father now. So I totally, I'm on the other side of the coin. and I'm having a very good time with my daughter. We have issues. She's a teenager. It's a textbook, actually, at the moment. A textbook teen? Yeah, totally, yeah, where it has no interest in me whatsoever. Anyways, so I'm having this feeling of rejection and, like, my child is, you know, it's growing. These things pass. Yeah, so, yeah, well, thank you. Honestly, they do. What does your dad think about the song now?

17:53He loves it. He loves it, yeah. My dad and I have an amazing relationship now. And it's only actually been in the last, I would say, five or six years that it's really been, I think, smoothed out for the duration, I would say. Because we did work very hard. We went to therapy together. Oh, really? We stayed in contact even though we didn't want to. And so we've really tried to hammer out something that's pretty long-lasting for us. we have to accept certain things that we don't necessarily agree with at times. At this point, we're just letting go of the angst and just focusing on the positive.

18:33Somewhere near the end of our lives But till then, no daddy, don't be surprised If I want to see the tears in your eyes

19:02Your next choice for this cultural life, Rufus, is Verdi's Requiem.

19:14who played it to you how old were you well i was about 12 or 13 and i was north of montreal where our family has a home with my mother and my aunt and one of them had bought a recording with uc bierling and leontine price with the vienna philharmonic it just completely changed my life within that two-hour period, I was just transfixed into this, you know, opera queen by the end of it.

19:58I mean, the next day I rushed to a record store and, you know, wanted to buy all the recordings available. Are there works by Verdi? Well, we'll start with The Requiem, and then the next one was Rigoletto, and that was sort of coupled with Puccini because I got really into his arias. Then I moved on to Strauss, and also Janicek. I got really into him. And I always knew Wagner was great, but I don't think I was ready to kind of jump into that pool yet. But then when I met my husband, Jorn, who's a real Wagnerian, that's when I went on a total Wagner binge, and we went to Bayreuth. He's German, you're right?

20:35He's German, yes. Am I right in thinking that this would probably have been here in the Verdi Requiem, your introduction to all of this kind of music, because everything else was folk music at that time, or is that too simple as to say? Well, look, there was a ton of folk music around, and I loved it then, and I still do. But I didn't feel a sort of pull or a kind of enticement into the folk world, I think, as a gay man, and a gay young man, and being that I was a boy, really, I was 13. And I knew my sexuality at that point. So I think I was longing and searching for some kind of place to rest.

21:11And opera, as it has for hundreds of years, kind of sent out that signal, come here and relax. So I heeded the call, shall we say. Do you associate those two moments then, hearing the Verdi Requiem and becoming aware of your sexuality? Oh, yeah, they were really incredibly intertwined. We're intertwined, yeah. Especially also when you put in AIDS there, because it was 1987, and AIDS was just everywhere in terms of the gay male population. And I was pretty sure that I was going to probably die at a young age, and I had sort of accepted that. So I definitely identified with both the Requiem and Verdi's music.

21:53Were you aware at that age, or had you always known you were gay? It was like 11 or something when it started to really shift. My dad was living in London. He was living in West Hampstead, and I came to London, and I went to camp in Lyme Regis, and I fell in love with a girl. And we, you know, we were whatever. We just, I think we kissed once or something. Maybe not even, but that was sort of it after that. It was all downhill. Did you come out to your parents? Well, at that point, I was sneaking out of the house. going to bars, going to nightclubs. At 13, 14. Yeah, 13, 14, which isn't uncommon for people of my generation.

22:34It was a very, the early 80s, mid-80s were pretty tricky in terms of what was going on with kids and stuff. But yeah, I would sneak out and had sexual encounters and stuff, which were not pleasant. And yeah, if I had to kind of hold anything against my parents and really be okay with that, And I've forgiven them, but they were not great in terms of my sexuality. My mother was appalled because she found some magazines one day, and she wanted to kick me out of the house. And my dad, he was more just like, I don't want to deal with this, really. He was just very hands-on. He just didn't know what to do.

23:15So I think my dad was flummoxed. My mother was horrified. But above all of that was AIDS looming. So I think everybody was pretty, you know, outrageous. And back to Verdi's Requiem. That was a kind of a gateway drug for you, wasn't it? Yes, yes. That was the gate that led me to the garden. Your work as a singer-songwriter has always been renowned for its sense of scale, its ambition and its drama. When you started writing, were you always maybe a frustrated classical composer? I wouldn't say frustrated. I definitely would say aspiring, you know. Like when I discovered opera and I started writing songs, I knew really early on, like, what if you took songwriting and really tried to write arias, essentially, as opposed to pop songs or folk songs.

24:07So I definitely knew that to kind of create this hybrid would be an interesting experiment, which proved to be correct. So I always maintained this longing and desire to progress. into the classical world at my own pace. Because, you know, when I did Prima Donna, my first opera, when it was finished, you know, I was just hit by a barrage of criticism of me being, you know, a kind of crossover, dilettante. There's nothing new here. You know, it's so childish. It's so, you know, you know, it's just... And I knew, especially with Prima Donna, that this was my first opera. And I'm just here to learn how to do it.

24:47and I'm just going to do what comes naturally. Thankfully, the piece has survived and has proven them wrong. It's not a masterpiece by any means, but there's something there. And it's paid off wildly, because now I have my own Requiem, the Dream Requiem, which is a huge success.

25:21How much was that influenced directly by Verdi's ring? Oh, incredibly. There's a direct link, obviously. We just did it in Hamburg with Isabelle Hubert as the narrator. We're doing it in London as a ballet. That piece is sort of the flower of my classical ambitions, which, you know, I didn't get traditionally. I went to a conservatory for about a year, did terribly. I think I failed every course. but I actually got to sing Verdi's Requiem though when I went to conservatory at McGill. They happened to be doing it that year with the choir so I got to sing it which was great. So yeah, requiems are important for me for sure.

26:13What were the main aspects of Verdi's Requiem that kind of really struck a chord with you? Well, obviously the sense of drama and the sense of redemption and the acceptance of death, you know, the concept of, you know, this is happening and we have to translate it, you know.

26:39You know, it's interesting, though, because then in writing my own requiem, not for me, but the dream requiem, which I guess they'll play when I die, but what I was really struck by in that process was really getting into the text, the Latin text. So you have traditional Latin liturgical text. Yeah, yeah. But also interspersed with a poem by Lord Byron. It's called Darkness, and it's written by Lord Byron in 1816. I had a dream which was not all a dream. The bright sun was extinguished, and the stars did wander darkling in the eternal space, rayless and pathless, and the icy earth swung blind and blackening in the moonless air.