All Days Are Nights: Songs for Lulu
Encyclopedia
All Days Are Nights: Songs for Lulu is the sixth studio album
by Canadian-American
singer-songwriter
Rufus Wainwright
, first released in Canada through Decca Records
on March 23, 2010. The album was produced
by Wainwright (with Pierre Marchand
on three tracks), and mixed
by Marchand, who produced Wainwright's second album, Poses (2001).
All Days Are Nights is Wainwright's first release since the death of his mother, folk
singer Kate McGarrigle
, who died from cancer
in January 2010. While Wainwright is known for lush orchestrations and arrangements, this album contains piano and voice work, with twelve original songs. Three songs are settings of William Shakespeare
's sonnets
("Sonnet 10
", "Sonnet 20
", and "Sonnet 43
").
of William Shakespeare
's "Sonnet 43
" ("All days are nights to see till I see thee..."). When asked about the reference to "Lulu", which appears in the second part of the album's title, Wainwright stated in a November 2009 interview that Lulu is a "dark, brooding, dangerous woman that lives within all of us", similar to the Dark Lady
character in Shakespeare's sonnets
. Wainwright claimed that his Lulu was Louise Brooks
in the 1929 movie Pandora's Box
. He also stated in an interview with Jian Ghomeshi
that Lulu is a reference to the opera of the same name
by Alban Berg
, which was adapted from Frank Wedekind
's plays
Earth Spirit
(or Erdgeist, 1895) and Pandora's Box
(or Die Büchse der Pandora, 1904), the latter of which inspired the aforementioned film by Georg Wilhelm Pabst
.
and subsequent album release
, Release the Stars
, and annual Christmas shows billed as the "McGarrigle Christmas Hour", Wainwright intended for his next studio release to be a simpler piano and voice album.
with photographer Kevin Westenberg on January 5, 2010 at Park Avenue Armory
in New York City. On March 15, 2010, Wainwright previewed the album by performing an intimate concert at Rose Bar in the Gramercy Park Hotel
in New York City. Celebrities in attendance included Eva Amurri
, Penn Badgley
, Drew Barrymore
, Alexis Bledel
, Alan Cumming
, Scarlett Johansson
, Michael Kors
, Lucy Liu
, Natasha Lyonne
, Kyle Martino
, Lou Reed
, Susan Sarandon
, Christian Siriano
, Amber Tamblyn
, and Zachary Quinto
.
in digital format
on the Canadian iTunes Store
on March 2, 2010.
s while recounting an "obsessive search for an unnamed object of desire". The song was originally written for a film, but was rejected by the movie's producers (to Wainwright's apparent relief). References to New York City in the song's lyrics include Grand Central Station
, Madison Square Garden
and the Empire State Building
. "Sad with What I Have", described as an "abyss of self-pity", contains a reference to Bluebeard
, the title character in a 1697 fairy tale
by Charles Perrault
. "Martha" consists of conversational lyrics inspired by Wainwright's sister (Martha Wainwright
). Wainwright claimed the song is about the "finite nature of time -- you can go on and on, and one day, everybody's gone and there's nothing you can do about it." One NME
reviewer described the upbeat track "Give Me What I Want and Give It to Me Now!", just over two minutes in length, as a "seemingly ritzy show-tune, undercut by a vague hint of something sinister looming up ahead." Directed towards critics of his opera, Wainwright considers the song one of the most personal tracks on the album.
"True Loves" is an aphoristic reflection on love that concludes "A heart of stone never goes anywhere". "The Dream" is a melancholic song about the "sense of loss you feel after waking from a beautiful vision". In the "sweet-scented" ballad "What Would I Ever Do with a Rose?", Wainwright poetically meditates on love and nature. "Les feux d'artifice t'appellent" is the closing aria
from Wainwright's debut opera
, Prima Donna
, which premiered at the Manchester International Festival
in July 2009. On the album, Wainwright taps on the piano's sounding board
and runs his hands along its strings
to simulate the "crackle and cascade" of fireworks (which light up the Paris skyline in the opera).
"Zebulon", which has a "slow sad melody", contains references to an old crush, as well as to Wainwright's mother (folk singer Kate McGarrigle
) and sister. Wainwright wrote the song while his mother was sick and staying at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal
, as evident by the line "My mother's in hospital, my sister's at the opera". The Edmonton Journal
s Sandra Sperounes described the song as a reenactment of Wainwright's "plodding" steps, which steadily build into a "promise of triumph or, at the very least, temporary relief from pain". Both Wainwright and his mother claimed the song to be one of their favorites, the former even considering it one of the most "profound" pieces on the album.
", "Sonnet 20
", and "Sonnet 43
". Wainwright composed music for each of the sonnets, along with several others, when collaborating with avant-garde
stage director Robert Wilson
and the Berliner Ensemble
on a project known as "Sonette". The production premiered in Berlin
in April 2009, and contained 24 sonnets, each stylized with cross-dressing
actors, "lavish costumes, huge hair-dos and [Wilson's] trademark lighting and puppet-like choreography.
"Sonnet 10", considered one of Shakespeare's procreation sonnets
(which encourage the young man to marry and father children), marks the first time the poet indicates his own devotion to the young man.
Regarding the sonnets, Wainwright stated: "I had never really immersed myself in them and I came out the end with the traditional view that they could be the greatest pieces of literature ever written." NME music reviewer Luke Lewis suggested that listeners might find "Sonnet 43" pretentious due to its "oblique, wonky melodies" and "Sonnet 10" difficult depending on their tolerance for "piano-led whimsy and Elizabethan circumlocution". However, he complimented "Sonnet 20" for its less abstract melodies. The Times
music critic Peter Paphides
commented that the sonnets reined in Wainwright's grandiose tendencies, setting them apart from original music featured on the album.
festival in Toronto, one night after the North American debut of his opera, Prima Donna.
During the tour, Wainwright performed songs from the album as a song cycle
, with no applause permitted in between. Wainwright toured alone, both due to the simpler piano and voice sound of the album and because declining ticket prices did not allow him to perform with a large band. However, concerts did include an accompanying film by Scottish video artist Douglas Gordon
and some "glam-ish costuming" by fashion designer Zaldy Goco, who created a 17-foot-long, black feathered cape
for Wainwright. Wainwright acknowledged that touring would be a challenge, as All Days Are Nights: Songs for Lulu contains some of his "most difficult" and "technically demanding" work. Regarding his tour and ability to face his grief over his mother's death, Wainwright admitted: "This is such new territory for me and there are moments when I think I'm doing fine and two seconds later I'm on the floorboards so it's uncharted. I'm just figuring it out as I go along. It's what we all go through... but it's still very tough."
wrote that some of the Shakespeare sonnets Wainwright included on the album came out "difficult, clunky" and less than beautiful when set to music, but noted that "[p]erhaps it’s not such an insult to say that [Wainwright has] failed to enhance Shakespeare." Sandra Sperounes called the album "far from perfect", mostly due to its lack of accessibility in "tone, subject and structure". Though Sperounes praised Wainwright for his ambitions, she criticized him for "dwell[ing] on his misery as most of his songs slowly plod along, with only a brief flurry of notes to punctuate the occasional phrase, as if he's mustering up the strength to make it through another minefield."
After asserting that "darkness" is a central theme to the album, music critic T'Cha Dunlevy wrote that the lack of lush orchestrations and arrangements Wainwright is known for emphasized his solitude, "exposing him in ways we haven't heard before." A reviewer for BBC
claimed the album is successfully intimate and intense, and suggested it would be appropriate for "either a wet afternoon or long candlelit nights of soul searching". The Daily Telegraph
published a five-star review stating that the album was Wainwright's "most moving and durable album to date" and concluded that his mother would be very proud of the collection.
All songs written by Wainwright, unless otherwise noted.
iTunes Store pre-order bonus track (Canada, United States):
United Kingdom digipack bonus track:
in Canada on March 23, 2010, followed by the United Kingdom through Polydor
on April 5, the European Union on April 12, and the United States through Decca
on April 20. A digipak version of the album released in the U.K. contained an alternate version of "Les feux d'artifice t'appellent" as a bonus track
. Canadians that pre-ordered the album using iTunes received a live version of "Zebulon" as a bonus track.
Studio album
A studio album is an album made up of tracks recorded in the controlled environment of a recording studio. A studio album contains newly written and recorded or previously unreleased or remixed material, distinguishing itself from a compilation or reissue album of previously recorded material, or...
by Canadian-American
Canadian-American
A Canadian American is someone who was born or someone who grew up in Canada then moved to the United States. The term is particularly apt when applied or self-applied to people with strong ties to Canada, such as those who have lived a significant portion of their lives in, or were educated in,...
singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriters are musicians who write, compose and sing their own musical material including lyrics and melodies. As opposed to contemporary popular music singers who write their own songs, the term singer-songwriter describes a distinct form of artistry, closely associated with the...
Rufus Wainwright
Rufus Wainwright
Rufus McGarrigle Wainwright is an American-Canadian singer-songwriter. He has recorded six albums of original music, EPs, and tracks on compilations and film soundtracks.-Early years:...
, first released in Canada through Decca Records
Decca Records
Decca Records began as a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis. Its U.S. label was established in late 1934; however, owing to World War II, the link with the British company was broken for several decades....
on March 23, 2010. The album was produced
Record producer
A record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...
by Wainwright (with Pierre Marchand
Pierre Marchand
Pierre Marchand is a Canadian songwriter, musician and record producer.Pierre Marchand is known for his ongoing collaboration with Sarah McLachlan, having produced all of her albums since Solace...
on three tracks), and mixed
Audio mixing (recorded music)
In audio recording, audio mixing is the process by which multiple recorded sounds are combined into one or more channels, most commonly two-channel stereo. In the process, the source signals' level, frequency content, dynamics, and panoramic position are manipulated and effects such as reverb may...
by Marchand, who produced Wainwright's second album, Poses (2001).
All Days Are Nights is Wainwright's first release since the death of his mother, folk
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
singer Kate McGarrigle
Kate McGarrigle
Kate McGarrigle, CM was a Canadian folk music singer-songwriter, who wrote and performed as a duo with her sister Anna McGarrigle....
, who died from cancer
Cancer
Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...
in January 2010. While Wainwright is known for lush orchestrations and arrangements, this album contains piano and voice work, with twelve original songs. Three songs are settings of William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
's sonnets
Shakespeare's sonnets
Shakespeare's sonnets are 154 poems in sonnet form written by William Shakespeare, dealing with themes such as the passage of time, love, beauty and mortality. All but two of the poems were first published in a 1609 quarto entitled SHAKE-SPEARES SONNETS.: Never before imprinted. Sonnets 138 and 144...
("Sonnet 10
Sonnet 10
Sonnet 10 is another of Shakespeare's procreation sonnets. Shakespeare uses a rather harsh tone to admonish the young man for his refusal to fall in love and have children.-Synopsis:...
", "Sonnet 20
Sonnet 20
William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 20 was published in a collection of 154 sonnets in the early seventeenth century. This particular sonnet is infamously known and widely interpreted due to questions raised regarding the sexuality of the narrator, and therefore Shakespeare himself...
", and "Sonnet 43
Sonnet 43
Shakespeare's Sonnet 43 employs antithesis and paradox to highlight the speaker's yearning for his beloved and sadness in his absence, and confusion about the situation described in the previous three sonnets.-Paraphrase:...
").
Title
The first part of the title, "All Days Are Nights", comes from the final coupletCouplet
A couplet is a pair of lines of meter in poetry. It usually consists of two lines that rhyme and have the same meter.While traditionally couplets rhyme, not all do. A poem may use white space to mark out couplets if they do not rhyme. Couplets with a meter of iambic pentameter are called heroic...
of William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
's "Sonnet 43
Sonnet 43
Shakespeare's Sonnet 43 employs antithesis and paradox to highlight the speaker's yearning for his beloved and sadness in his absence, and confusion about the situation described in the previous three sonnets.-Paraphrase:...
" ("All days are nights to see till I see thee..."). When asked about the reference to "Lulu", which appears in the second part of the album's title, Wainwright stated in a November 2009 interview that Lulu is a "dark, brooding, dangerous woman that lives within all of us", similar to the Dark Lady
Dark Lady (character)
The Dark Lady is a stock character in fiction. Her darkness is either literal, meaning that she has a dark skin, or metaphorical in that she is a tragic, doomed figure. The two may go together, with one being an allegory for the other.-Shakespeare:...
character in Shakespeare's sonnets
Shakespeare's sonnets
Shakespeare's sonnets are 154 poems in sonnet form written by William Shakespeare, dealing with themes such as the passage of time, love, beauty and mortality. All but two of the poems were first published in a 1609 quarto entitled SHAKE-SPEARES SONNETS.: Never before imprinted. Sonnets 138 and 144...
. Wainwright claimed that his Lulu was Louise Brooks
Louise Brooks
Mary Louise Brooks , generally known by her stage name Louise Brooks, was an American dancer, model, showgirl and silent film actress, noted for popularizing the bobbed haircut. Brooks is best known for her three feature roles including two G. W...
in the 1929 movie Pandora's Box
Pandora's Box (film)
Pandora's Box is a 1929 German silent melodrama film based on Frank Wedekind's plays Erdgeist and Die Büchse der Pandora . Directed by Austrian filmmaker Georg Wilhelm Pabst, the film stars Louise Brooks, Fritz Kortner, and Francis Lederer...
. He also stated in an interview with Jian Ghomeshi
Jian Ghomeshi
Jian Ghomeshi is a Canadian broadcaster, writer, musician and producer of Iranian descent who was raised in Thornhill, Ontario. Now based in Toronto, he is the host of the national daily cultural affairs talk program, Q, on CBC Radio One and Bold TV...
that Lulu is a reference to the opera of the same name
Lulu (opera)
Lulu is an opera by the composer Alban Berg. The libretto was adapted by Berg himself from Frank Wedekind's plays Erdgeist and Die Büchse der Pandora .-Composition history:...
by Alban Berg
Alban Berg
Alban Maria Johannes Berg was an Austrian composer. He was a member of the Second Viennese School with Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern, and produced compositions that combined Mahlerian Romanticism with a personal adaptation of Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique.-Early life:Berg was born in...
, which was adapted from Frank Wedekind
Frank Wedekind
Benjamin Franklin Wedekind , usually known as Frank Wedekind, was a German playwright...
's plays
Play (theatre)
A play is a form of literature written by a playwright, usually consisting of scripted dialogue between characters, intended for theatrical performance rather than just reading. There are rare dramatists, notably George Bernard Shaw, who have had little preference whether their plays were performed...
Earth Spirit
Earth Spirit (play)
Earth Spirit is a play by the German dramatist Frank Wedekind. It forms the first part of his pairing of 'Lulu' plays , both of which depict a society "riven by the demands of lust and greed". In German folklore an erdgeist is a gnome, first described in Goethe's Faust...
(or Erdgeist, 1895) and Pandora's Box
Pandora's Box (play)
Pandora's Box is a play by the German dramatist Frank Wedekind. It forms the second part of his pairing of 'Lulu' plays , both of which depict a society "riven by the demands of lust and greed".G. W. Pabst directed a silent film version , which was loosely based on the play, in 1929...
(or Die Büchse der Pandora, 1904), the latter of which inspired the aforementioned film by Georg Wilhelm Pabst
Georg Wilhelm Pabst
-Biography:Pabst was born in Raudnitz, Bohemia, Austria-Hungary , the son of a railroad employee.Returning from the United States, he was in France when World War I began...
.
Conception and development
Following larger projects such as his tribute concert series to Judy GarlandJudy Garland
Judy Garland was an American actress and singer. Through a career that spanned 45 of her 47 years and for her renowned contralto voice, she attained international stardom as an actress in musical and dramatic roles, as a recording artist and on the concert stage...
and subsequent album release
Rufus Does Judy at Carnegie Hall
Rufus Does Judy at Carnegie Hall is the sixth album by the Canadian-American singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright, released through Geffen Records in December 2007. The album consists of live recordings from his sold-out June 14–15, 2006 tribute concerts at Carnegie Hall to the legendary American...
, Release the Stars
Release the Stars
Release the Stars is the fifth studio album by Canadian-American singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright, released through Geffen Records on May 15, 2007. Pet Shop Boys' Neil Tennant was the executive in charge of production, and the album was mixed by producers Marius de Vries and Andy Bradfield...
, and annual Christmas shows billed as the "McGarrigle Christmas Hour", Wainwright intended for his next studio release to be a simpler piano and voice album.
Promotion
Images used for the album insert and other promotional material were taken during a photo shootPhoto shoot
A photo shoot is generally used in the fashion industry, whereby a model poses for a photographer at a studio where multiple photos are taken to find the best ones for the required brief...
with photographer Kevin Westenberg on January 5, 2010 at Park Avenue Armory
Seventh Regiment Armory
The Seventh Regiment Armory, located at 643 Park Avenue also known as in New York, New York, United States, is an historic brick building that fills an entire city block on New York's Upper East Side.- History :...
in New York City. On March 15, 2010, Wainwright previewed the album by performing an intimate concert at Rose Bar in the Gramercy Park Hotel
Gramercy Park Hotel
Gramercy Park Hotel is a luxury hotel located at 2 Lexington Avenue, in the Gramercy Park neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, adjacent to Gramercy Park. It is known for its rich history.-History:Gramercy Park Hotel was designed by Robert T...
in New York City. Celebrities in attendance included Eva Amurri
Eva Amurri
Eva Maria Livia Amurri is an American actress.- Early life :Amurri was born in New York City, New York, to Italian director Franco Amurri and American actress Susan Sarandon. Her grandfather was television writer Antonio Amurri, and her aunt is television writer Valentina Amurri...
, Penn Badgley
Penn Badgley
Penn Dayton Badgley is an American actor. He is best known for his role as Dan Humphrey on the CW television series Gossip Girl. He has also starred in the movies John Tucker Must Die, The Stepfather, and Easy A....
, Drew Barrymore
Drew Barrymore
Drew Blyth Barrymore is an American actress, film director, screenwriter, producer and model. She is a member of the Barrymore family of American actors and granddaughter of John Barrymore. She first appeared in an advertisement when she was 11 months old. Barrymore made her film debut in Altered...
, Alexis Bledel
Alexis Bledel
Alexis Bledel is an American actress. She is known for her roles as Rory Gilmore in the television series Gilmore Girls and Lena Kaligaris in The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2.-Early life:Bledel was born Kimberly Alexis Bledel in Houston, Texas...
, Alan Cumming
Alan Cumming
Alan Cumming, OBE is a Scottish stage, television and film actor, singer, writer, director, producer and author. His roles have included the Emcee in Cabaret, Boris Grishenko in GoldenEye, Kurt Wagner/Nightcrawler in X2: X-Men United, Mr. Elton in Emma, and Fegan Floop in the Spy Kids trilogy...
, Scarlett Johansson
Scarlett Johansson
Scarlett Johansson is an American actress, model and singer.Johansson made her film debut in North and was later nominated for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Female Lead for her performance in Manny & Lo . She rose to further prominence with her roles in The Horse Whisperer and Ghost World...
, Michael Kors
Michael Kors
Michael Kors is an American fashion designer. He is best known for designing classic American sportswear for women.-Personal life:...
, Lucy Liu
Lucy Liu
Lucy Alexis Liu is an American actress and film producer. She became known for playing the role of the vicious and ill-mannered Ling Woo in the television series Ally McBeal , and has also appeared in several Hollywood films including Charlie's Angels, Chicago, Kill Bill, and Kung Fu Panda.-Early...
, Natasha Lyonne
Natasha Lyonne
-Early life:Lyonne was born Natasha Braunstein in Manhattan, New York City, the daughter of Yvette Lyonne, a product licensing consultant, and Aaron Braunstein, a native of Brooklyn who worked as a boxing promoter. Lyonne grew up in an Orthodox Jewish household...
, Kyle Martino
Kyle Martino
Kyle Martino is a retired American soccer player and currently a TV soccer color analyst.-High School:Martino attended Staples High School in Westport, CT...
, Lou Reed
Lou Reed
Lewis Allan "Lou" Reed is an American rock musician, songwriter, and photographer. He is best known as guitarist, vocalist, and principal songwriter of The Velvet Underground, and for his successful solo career, which has spanned several decades...
, Susan Sarandon
Susan Sarandon
Susan Sarandon is an American actress. She has worked in films and television since 1969, and won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in the 1995 film Dead Man Walking. She had also been nominated for the award for four films before that and has received other recognition for her...
, Christian Siriano
Christian Siriano
Christian Siriano is an American fashion designer. Siriano first gained attention after winning the fourth season of American reality show Project Runway, becoming the series' youngest winner...
, Amber Tamblyn
Amber Tamblyn
Amber Rose Tamblyn is an American actress and poet. She first came to national attention in her role on the soap opera General Hospital as Emily Quartermaine, followed by a starring role on the prime-time series Joan of Arcadia portraying the title character...
, and Zachary Quinto
Zachary Quinto
Zachary John Quinto is an American actor and producer. Quinto grew up in Pennsylvania and was active in high school musical theater. In the early 2000s he guest starred in television series and appeared in a recurring role in the serial drama 24 from 2003 to 2004...
.
Singles
"Who Are You New York?" was first released as a singleSingle (music)
In music, a single or record single is a type of release, typically a recording of fewer tracks than an LP or a CD. This can be released for sale to the public in a variety of different formats. In most cases, the single is a song that is released separately from an album, but it can still appear...
in digital format
Music download
A music download is the transferral of music from an Internet-facing computer or website to a user's local computer. This term encompasses both legal downloads and downloads of copyright material without permission or payment...
on the Canadian iTunes Store
ITunes Store
The iTunes Store is a software-based online digital media store operated by Apple. Opening as the iTunes Music Store on April 28, 2003, with over 200,000 items to purchase, it is, as of April 2008, the number-one music vendor in the United States...
on March 2, 2010.
Songs
In the album's opening track, "Who Are You New York?", Wainwright utilizes rolling arpeggioArpeggio
An arpeggio is a musical technique where notes in a chord are played or sung in sequence, one after the other, rather than ringing out simultaneously...
s while recounting an "obsessive search for an unnamed object of desire". The song was originally written for a film, but was rejected by the movie's producers (to Wainwright's apparent relief). References to New York City in the song's lyrics include Grand Central Station
Grand Central Terminal
Grand Central Terminal —often incorrectly called Grand Central Station, or shortened to simply Grand Central—is a terminal station at 42nd Street and Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States...
, Madison Square Garden
Madison Square Garden
Madison Square Garden, often abbreviated as MSG and known colloquially as The Garden, is a multi-purpose indoor arena in the New York City borough of Manhattan and located at 8th Avenue, between 31st and 33rd Streets, situated on top of Pennsylvania Station.Opened on February 11, 1968, it is the...
and the Empire State Building
Empire State Building
The Empire State Building is a 102-story landmark skyscraper and American cultural icon in New York City at the intersection of Fifth Avenue and West 34th Street. It has a roof height of 1,250 feet , and with its antenna spire included, it stands a total of 1,454 ft high. Its name is derived...
. "Sad with What I Have", described as an "abyss of self-pity", contains a reference to Bluebeard
Bluebeard
"Bluebeard" is a French literary folktale written by Charles Perrault and is one of eight tales by the author first published by Barbin in Paris in January 1697 in Histoires ou Contes du temps passé. The tale tells the story of a violent nobleman in the habit of murdering his wives and the...
, the title character in a 1697 fairy tale
Fairy tale
A fairy tale is a type of short story that typically features such folkloric characters, such as fairies, goblins, elves, trolls, dwarves, giants or gnomes, and usually magic or enchantments. However, only a small number of the stories refer to fairies...
by Charles Perrault
Charles Perrault
Charles Perrault was a French author who laid the foundations for a new literary genre, the fairy tale, with his works derived from pre-existing folk tales. The best known include Le Petit Chaperon rouge , Cendrillon , Le Chat Botté and La Barbe bleue...
. "Martha" consists of conversational lyrics inspired by Wainwright's sister (Martha Wainwright
Martha Wainwright
Martha Wainwright is a Canadian-American folk-rock singer-songwriter. She is the daughter of American folk singer and actor Loudon Wainwright III and Canadian folk singer-songwriter Kate McGarrigle...
). Wainwright claimed the song is about the "finite nature of time -- you can go on and on, and one day, everybody's gone and there's nothing you can do about it." One NME
NME
The New Musical Express is a popular music publication in the United Kingdom, published weekly since March 1952. It started as a music newspaper, and gradually moved toward a magazine format during the 1980s, changing from newsprint in 1998. It was the first British paper to include a singles...
reviewer described the upbeat track "Give Me What I Want and Give It to Me Now!", just over two minutes in length, as a "seemingly ritzy show-tune, undercut by a vague hint of something sinister looming up ahead." Directed towards critics of his opera, Wainwright considers the song one of the most personal tracks on the album.
"True Loves" is an aphoristic reflection on love that concludes "A heart of stone never goes anywhere". "The Dream" is a melancholic song about the "sense of loss you feel after waking from a beautiful vision". In the "sweet-scented" ballad "What Would I Ever Do with a Rose?", Wainwright poetically meditates on love and nature. "Les feux d'artifice t'appellent" is the closing aria
Aria
An aria in music was originally any expressive melody, usually, but not always, performed by a singer. The term is now used almost exclusively to describe a self-contained piece for one voice usually with orchestral accompaniment...
from Wainwright's debut opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
, Prima Donna
Prima Donna (opera)
Prima Donna is an opera composed by Canadian-American singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright to a French language libretto which he co-authored with Bernadette Colomine. It is about "a day in the life of an aging opera singer", anxiously preparing for her comeback in 1970s Paris, who falls in love with...
, which premiered at the Manchester International Festival
Manchester International Festival
The Manchester International Festival is an international cultural festival of original new work, held in the English city of Manchester. It is a biennial event, first taking place in June–July 2007, and subsequently recurring in the summers of 2009 and 2011...
in July 2009. On the album, Wainwright taps on the piano's sounding board
Sounding board
A sound board, or soundboard, is the surface of a string instrument that the strings vibrate against, usually via some sort of bridge. The resonant properties of the sound board and the interior of the instrument greatly increase loudness over the string alone.The sound board operates by the...
and runs his hands along its strings
Piano wire
Piano wire, or "music wire", is a specialized type of wire made for use in piano strings, as well as many other purposes. It is made from tempered high-carbon steel, also known as spring steel.-Manufacture and use:...
to simulate the "crackle and cascade" of fireworks (which light up the Paris skyline in the opera).
Kate McGarrigle
Kate McGarrigle, CM was a Canadian folk music singer-songwriter, who wrote and performed as a duo with her sister Anna McGarrigle....
) and sister. Wainwright wrote the song while his mother was sick and staying at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
, as evident by the line "My mother's in hospital, my sister's at the opera". The Edmonton Journal
Edmonton Journal
The Edmonton Journal is a daily newspaper in Edmonton, Alberta. It is part of the Postmedia Network.-History:The Journal was founded in 1903 by three local businessmen — John Macpherson, Arthur Moore and J.W. Cunningham — as a rival to Alberta's first newspaper, the 23-year-old...
s Sandra Sperounes described the song as a reenactment of Wainwright's "plodding" steps, which steadily build into a "promise of triumph or, at the very least, temporary relief from pain". Both Wainwright and his mother claimed the song to be one of their favorites, the former even considering it one of the most "profound" pieces on the album.
Sonnets
Three of the songs on the album are adaptations of Shakespeare's sonnets—"Sonnet 10Sonnet 10
Sonnet 10 is another of Shakespeare's procreation sonnets. Shakespeare uses a rather harsh tone to admonish the young man for his refusal to fall in love and have children.-Synopsis:...
", "Sonnet 20
Sonnet 20
William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 20 was published in a collection of 154 sonnets in the early seventeenth century. This particular sonnet is infamously known and widely interpreted due to questions raised regarding the sexuality of the narrator, and therefore Shakespeare himself...
", and "Sonnet 43
Sonnet 43
Shakespeare's Sonnet 43 employs antithesis and paradox to highlight the speaker's yearning for his beloved and sadness in his absence, and confusion about the situation described in the previous three sonnets.-Paraphrase:...
". Wainwright composed music for each of the sonnets, along with several others, when collaborating with avant-garde
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
stage director Robert Wilson
Robert Wilson (director)
Robert Wilson is an American avant-garde stage director and playwright who has been called "[America]'s — or even the world's — foremost vanguard 'theater artist'". Over the course of his wide-ranging career, he has also worked as a choreographer, performer, painter, sculptor, video...
and the Berliner Ensemble
Berliner Ensemble
The Berliner Ensemble is a German theatre company established by playwright Bertolt Brecht and his wife, Helene Weigel in January 1949 in East Berlin...
on a project known as "Sonette". The production premiered in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
in April 2009, and contained 24 sonnets, each stylized with cross-dressing
Cross-dressing
Cross-dressing is the wearing of clothing and other accoutrement commonly associated with a gender within a particular society that is seen as different than the one usually presented by the dresser...
actors, "lavish costumes, huge hair-dos and [Wilson's] trademark lighting and puppet-like choreography.
"Sonnet 10", considered one of Shakespeare's procreation sonnets
Procreation sonnets
The term procreation sonnets is a name given to Shakespearean sonnets numbers I to XVII .They are referred to as the procreation sonnets because they all argue that the young man to whom they are addressed should marry and father children, hence procreate...
(which encourage the young man to marry and father children), marks the first time the poet indicates his own devotion to the young man.
Regarding the sonnets, Wainwright stated: "I had never really immersed myself in them and I came out the end with the traditional view that they could be the greatest pieces of literature ever written." NME music reviewer Luke Lewis suggested that listeners might find "Sonnet 43" pretentious due to its "oblique, wonky melodies" and "Sonnet 10" difficult depending on their tolerance for "piano-led whimsy and Elizabethan circumlocution". However, he complimented "Sonnet 20" for its less abstract melodies. The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
music critic Peter Paphides
Peter Paphides
Peter Paphides is a British journalist and broadcaster.Between 2005 and 2010 he was employed as the chief rock critic of The Times and presented The Times weekly music podcast for Sounds Music supplement...
commented that the sonnets reined in Wainwright's grandiose tendencies, setting them apart from original music featured on the album.
Tour
To promote the album, Wainwright began touring in April 2010 with a series of concerts throughout Ireland and the United Kingdom. His North American tour began on June 15 at the LuminatoLuminato
Luminato - Toronto Festival of Arts and Creativity, is a publicly-attended, multi-disciplinary arts festival held annually for 10 days each June in Toronto, Ontario, Canada...
festival in Toronto, one night after the North American debut of his opera, Prima Donna.
During the tour, Wainwright performed songs from the album as a song cycle
Song cycle
A song cycle is a group of songs designed to be performed in a sequence as a single entity. As a rule, all of the songs are by the same composer and often use words from the same poet or lyricist. Unification can be achieved by a narrative or a persona common to the songs, or even, as in Schumann's...
, with no applause permitted in between. Wainwright toured alone, both due to the simpler piano and voice sound of the album and because declining ticket prices did not allow him to perform with a large band. However, concerts did include an accompanying film by Scottish video artist Douglas Gordon
Douglas Gordon
Douglas Gordon is a Scottish artist; he won the Turner Prize in 1996 and the following year he represented Britain at the Venice Biennale...
and some "glam-ish costuming" by fashion designer Zaldy Goco, who created a 17-foot-long, black feathered cape
Cape
Cape can be used to describe any sleeveless outer garment, such as a poncho, but usually it is a long garment that covers only the back half of the wearer, fastening around the neck. They were common in medieval Europe, especially when combined with a hood in the chaperon, and have had periodic...
for Wainwright. Wainwright acknowledged that touring would be a challenge, as All Days Are Nights: Songs for Lulu contains some of his "most difficult" and "technically demanding" work. Regarding his tour and ability to face his grief over his mother's death, Wainwright admitted: "This is such new territory for me and there are moments when I think I'm doing fine and two seconds later I'm on the floorboards so it's uncharted. I'm just figuring it out as I go along. It's what we all go through... but it's still very tough."
Critical reception
Overall, critical reception of the album was positive. NMEs Luke Lewis admitted that the album would not be to everyone's tastes, but asserted that lovers of Wainwright's voice will see this collection as its "purest, most uninterrupted expression yet". Furthermore, he complimented Wainwright's theatrical performance (despite his attempt at a stripped-down record), stating that "there's always a sense in which he's putting on a show, even when it's just him alone at a piano." STOCKYARD MagazineSTOCKYARD Magazine
STOCKYARD was an American online cultural magazine that focused on society, art, and literature; it published fiction, poetry, social commentary, political commentary, satire, reportage, and reviews. Started in 2008, it matured into a publication relevant to its Chicagoan and international...
wrote that some of the Shakespeare sonnets Wainwright included on the album came out "difficult, clunky" and less than beautiful when set to music, but noted that "[p]erhaps it’s not such an insult to say that [Wainwright has] failed to enhance Shakespeare." Sandra Sperounes called the album "far from perfect", mostly due to its lack of accessibility in "tone, subject and structure". Though Sperounes praised Wainwright for his ambitions, she criticized him for "dwell[ing] on his misery as most of his songs slowly plod along, with only a brief flurry of notes to punctuate the occasional phrase, as if he's mustering up the strength to make it through another minefield."
After asserting that "darkness" is a central theme to the album, music critic T'Cha Dunlevy wrote that the lack of lush orchestrations and arrangements Wainwright is known for emphasized his solitude, "exposing him in ways we haven't heard before." A reviewer for BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
claimed the album is successfully intimate and intense, and suggested it would be appropriate for "either a wet afternoon or long candlelit nights of soul searching". The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...
published a five-star review stating that the album was Wainwright's "most moving and durable album to date" and concluded that his mother would be very proud of the collection.
Track listing
- "Who Are You New York?" – 3:42
- "Sad with What I Have" – 3:06
- "Martha" – 3:12
- "Give Me What I Want and Give It to Me Now!" – 2:08
- "True Loves" – 3:52
- "Sonnet 43Sonnet 43Shakespeare's Sonnet 43 employs antithesis and paradox to highlight the speaker's yearning for his beloved and sadness in his absence, and confusion about the situation described in the previous three sonnets.-Paraphrase:...
" (William ShakespeareWilliam ShakespeareWilliam Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
, Wainwright) – 4:28 - "Sonnet 20Sonnet 20William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 20 was published in a collection of 154 sonnets in the early seventeenth century. This particular sonnet is infamously known and widely interpreted due to questions raised regarding the sexuality of the narrator, and therefore Shakespeare himself...
" (Shakespeare, Wainwright) – 2:59 - "Sonnet 10Sonnet 10Sonnet 10 is another of Shakespeare's procreation sonnets. Shakespeare uses a rather harsh tone to admonish the young man for his refusal to fall in love and have children.-Synopsis:...
" (Shakespeare, Wainwright) – 2:56 - "The Dream" – 5:27
- "What Would I Ever Do with a Rose?" – 4:23
- "Les feux d'artifice t'appellent" (Wainwright, Bernadette Colomine) – 5:57
- "Zebulon" – 5:38
iTunes Store pre-order bonus track (Canada, United States):
- "Zebulon" (live)
United Kingdom digipack bonus track:
- "Les feux d'artifice t'appellent" (alternate version)
Personnel
- Rufus WainwrightRufus WainwrightRufus McGarrigle Wainwright is an American-Canadian singer-songwriter. He has recorded six albums of original music, EPs, and tracks on compilations and film soundtracks.-Early years:...
– producerRecord producerA record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music... - Tom Arndt – package coordinator
- Adam Ayan – masteringAudio masteringMastering, a form of audio post-production, is the process of preparing and transferring recorded audio from a source containing the final mix to a data storage device ; the source from which all copies will be produced...
- Pat Barry – creative coordinator
- Daniel Boldoc – piano technicianPiano tuningPiano tuning is the act of making minute adjustments to the tensions of the strings of a piano to properly align the intervals between their tones so that the instrument is in tune. The meaning of the term in tune in the context of piano tuning is not simply a particular fixed set of pitches...
- Carlos Cicchalli – production coordination
- Douglas Cordon – photographyPhotographyPhotography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...
- Caroline Kousidonis – producer
- Pierre MarchandPierre MarchandPierre Marchand is a Canadian songwriter, musician and record producer.Pierre Marchand is known for his ongoing collaboration with Sarah McLachlan, having produced all of her albums since Solace...
– mixingAudio mixing (recorded music)In audio recording, audio mixing is the process by which multiple recorded sounds are combined into one or more channels, most commonly two-channel stereo. In the process, the source signals' level, frequency content, dynamics, and panoramic position are manipulated and effects such as reverb may...
- Amy Maybauer – A&R
- Evalyn Morgan – A&R
- Frederik Pedersen – assistant photographer
- Julian Peplos – design
- Cary Rough – assistant photographer
- Tom Schick – engineerAudio engineeringAn audio engineer, also called audio technician, audio technologist or sound technician, is a specialist in a skilled trade that deals with the use of machinery and equipment for the recording, mixing and reproduction of sounds. The field draws on many artistic and vocational areas, including...
- Pascal Shefteshy – engineer, assistant
- Jörn Weisbrodt – handwritingPenmanshipPenmanship is the technique of writing with the hand using a writing instrument. The various generic and formal historical styles of writing are called hands, whilst an individual personal style of penmanship is referred to as handwriting....
- Zeynep Yücal – producer
Chart history
| Chart (2010) | Peak position |
|---|---|
| Austrian Albums Chart | 75 |
| Belgium Albums Chart Ultratop Ultratop is an organization which generates and publishes the official record charts in Belgium, and it is also the name of most of those charts... |
52 |
| Top Canadian Albums | 4 |
| Danish Albums Chart Tracklisten Tracklisten is a Danish top 40 record chart that is presented every Thursday midnight at .The weekly Danish Singles Chart also known as Track Top-40 combines the 40 best selling tracks from legal music downloads and the sales of music singles on either CD or vinyl... |
31 |
| Dutch Albums Chart MegaCharts MegaCharts is responsible for the composition and exploitation of a broad collection of official charts in the Netherlands, of which the Mega Top 50 and the Mega Album Top 100 are the most known ones. Mega Charts also provides information to the Stichting Nederlandse Top 40, of which the Dutch Top... |
38 |
| French Albums Chart | 160 |
| Greek Albums Chart | 13 |
| Norwegian Albums Chart VG-lista VG-listen is a Norwegian record chart. It is weekly presented in the newspaper VG and the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation program Topp 20. It is considered the primary Norwegian record chart, charting albums and singles from countries and continent around the world. The data is collected by... |
27 |
| Spanish Albums Chart | 41 |
| UK Albums Chart UK Albums Chart The UK Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales in the United Kingdom. It is compiled every week by The Official Charts Company and broadcast on a Sunday on BBC Radio 1 , and published in Music Week magazine and on the OCC website .To qualify for the UK albums chart... |
21 |
Release history
All Days Are Nights: Songs for Lulu was first released through DeccaDecca Records
Decca Records began as a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis. Its U.S. label was established in late 1934; however, owing to World War II, the link with the British company was broken for several decades....
in Canada on March 23, 2010, followed by the United Kingdom through Polydor
Polydor Records
Polydor is a record label owned by Universal Music Group, headquartered in the United Kingdom.-Beginnings:Polydor was originally an independent branch of the Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft. Its name was first used as an export label in 1924, the British and German branches of the Gramophone...
on April 5, the European Union on April 12, and the United States through Decca
Decca Records
Decca Records began as a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis. Its U.S. label was established in late 1934; however, owing to World War II, the link with the British company was broken for several decades....
on April 20. A digipak version of the album released in the U.K. contained an alternate version of "Les feux d'artifice t'appellent" as a bonus track
Bonus track
In terms of recorded music, a bonus track is a piece of music which has been included on specific releases or reissues of an album. This is most often done as a promotional device, either as an incentive to customers to purchase albums they might otherwise not, or to repurchase albums they already...
. Canadians that pre-ordered the album using iTunes received a live version of "Zebulon" as a bonus track.
| Region | Date | Distributing label | Format |
|---|---|---|---|
| Canada | March 23, 2010 | Decca | CD |
| United Kingdom | April 5, 2010 | Polydor | CD, digipack |
| European Union | April 12, 2010 | Polydor | CD |
| United States | April 20, 2010 | Decca | CD, vinyl Gramophone record A gramophone record, commonly known as a phonograph record , vinyl record , or colloquially, a record, is an analog sound storage medium consisting of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove... |
External links
- Rufus Wainwright's official site
- Rufus Wainwright, "All Days Are Nights: Songs for Lulu" by BillboardBillboard (magazine)Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...