Cigarettes & Chocolate Milk

Cigarettes & chocolate milk

These are just a couple of my cravings

Everything it seems I likes a little bit stronger

A little bit thicker, a little bit harmful for me

If I should buy jellybeans

Have to eat them all in just one sitting

Everything it seems I likes a little bit sweeter

A little bit fatter, a little bit harmful for me

And then there's those other things

Which for several reasons we wont mention

Everything about em is a little bit stranger, a little bit harder

A little bit deadly

It isn't very smart

Tends to make one part

so brokenhearted

Sitting here remembering me

Always been a shoe made for the city

Go ahead accuse me of just singing about places

With scrappy boys faces have general run of the town

Playing with prodigal sons

Take a lot of sentimental valiums

Can't expect the world to be your raggedy andy

While running on empty

you little old doll with a frown

You got to keep in the game

Retaining mystique while facing forward

I suggest a reading of lesson in tightropes

Or surfing your high hopes or adios kansas

It isn't very smart

Tends to make one part

So brokenhearted

Still there's not a show on my back

Holes or a friendly intervention

Im just a little bit heiress, a little bit irish

A little bit tower of pisa

Whenever I see ya

So please be kind if I'm a mess

Cigarettes & chocolate milk

Rufus Wainwright

2001

Happy Birthday, Rufus Wainwright!

I am a big fan of Rufus Wainwright. Wainwright makes his music sound ornate. At his best he is breathtaking: his rich baritone can soar more powerfully than the slurred lyrics, & his piano is filled with tremolo & rococo quavers without sacrificing the songs.


Wainwright seems to never be far from pretension, & after 7 albums, he is now at a point in his career where he can count on his adoring audience to accept his affectation as another part of his aesthetic, a wellspring for his talent & his extravagance. He creates magnificent, baroque, spiralling works.The duality of Wainwright’s musical muscle & his confessional manner seems to embody disgust & rejected emotions that fight it out like they were wrong notes.


Wainwright is equal parts Gershwin, Sondheim & Pet Shop Boys. His new album- All Days Are Nights was written & recorded while Wainwright’s mother, musician- Kate McGarrigle, was dying of cancer. Released just months after death, it is a somber & mournful, with a big pinch of humor. With Rufus Waunwright it is drama that I desire & it is drama I get(but not melodrama) & I am somehow enchanted:

“My mother’s in the hospital

My sister’s at the opera

I’m in love, but let’s not talk about it”

His narcissism is as much a part of his charm as his incredible voice, his piano, & his lyrical skill. I love Rufus Wainwright beacause he is beautiful, a bit doomed, & already, at 37 years old, iconic.

If Love Were All

This past Sunday evening, the Husband, the housemate- T, our dear friend Jake, & I were enjoying sitting by a roaring fire in the fireplace, while we gave a listen to 20th Century Blues, a compilation album of Noel Coward songs by current artists. The Pet Shop Boys do a cover of my favorite Noel Coward song- If Love Were All that is perfectly recast as a Pet Shop Boy's style song. Here is Rufus Wainwright taking a turn:





I believe in doing what I can
Crying when I must, and laughing when I choose
Hey ho, if love were all
I would be lonely


I believe the more you love a man
The more you put your trust, the more you're bound to lose
Although, when shadows fall,
I think if only somebody splendid really needed me
Someone affectionate & dear
Cares would be ended if I knew that he wanted to have me near


But I believe that since my life began
The most I've had is just a talent to amuse
Hey ho, if love were all