Want One and Two

OK, I admit it, you don’t have to go very far before you come up against one of my boundaries in knowledge. My excuse is that there’s so much stuff out there and three score and ten doesn’t even start to come close to the time that I would need to rectify it.

And so it was that ten days ago I read a piece in the Observer on Rufus Wainwright.

I’d never consciously heard the name before reading the article, although, in my defense, I had heard of his mother Kate McGarrigle. In fact, I think I’ve even listened to some of her folk songs in the dear and distant days of my youth. And I’m pretty sure that I’d heard of his father, Loudon Wainwright III (I point to the ‘III’ as the clincher that made it stick in the memory cells – a family that is so dumb as to use the same name three times in a row has to be dysfunctional somewhere along the line).

Anyway, the article was intriguing – Rufus sounded like a real bundle of twitching contradictions mixed in with musical talent inherited from his parents. The whole family seem to have had their share of angst – as his sister drily observed: "It wasn’t the Von Trapp Family". And Rufus is queer, to boot. OK, I thought, I must listen to some of his music.

Today, Want One arrived from Amazon, and I’ve been playing it all day. Loved the opening track: Oh What A World – with its mixing in of Ravel’s Bolero. I think I’m going to listen to more of the young Wainwright. I suspect my order to Want Two will shortly be placed with Amazon.