Wrestling Melancholy with Rufus Wainwright

“Sometimes I feel like my heart turns to dust."

“Unfollow the rules, unswallow the trust." — “Unfollow The Rules,” Rufus Wainwright

It’s maybe 2003 and I’m walking out of my studio apartment in the West Village towards Bleecker Street. I’m not sure what kind of mood I’m in. I’m sad but not depressed. I’m in my neighborhood but I’m new so I’m feeling kind of removed—maybe I’m feeling a little alone and numb—just thinking about my life, the future. Not sure where things are going. So, I duck into a record store to browse for nothing in particular. I notice a bunch of CDs labeled “Rufus Wainwright.” I had recently heard Wainwright’s version of The Beatles’ “Across The Universe” from the I Am Sam (2001) movie soundtrack and was just captivated.

Source: Big Hassle Media, used with permission

As I stumble upon Wainwright’s album Poses, I find what I didn’t know that I was looking for. I walk back to my apartment and pop the CD in, and as soon as I hear “Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk,” I feel like it’s instantly connecting with my mood. He seems not exactly sad; it’s more like he’s thinking, almost taunting himself—like he is celebrating darkness. I’ve since heard the term “Baroque Pop” used to describe his music and that fit for me. When I listen to Wainwright sing, I feel like I am looking at a Caravaggio painting—rich, textured, and luscious—expressing haunting emotions in a lavish and beautiful way.

When I think back to that day, I try to understand what I was feeling. The word that keeps hitting me is melancholy—a term that I always took to mean a version of sadness that brings one into a thoughtful contemplative state. And I realize that’s the mood I was in. Suddenly, I didn’t feel so alone. It was like my mood had purpose. Like I transformed from this aimless sad sack to this reflective “artiste.” All of a sudden, I was kind of happy being sad.

And when I recently spoke with Wainwright for The Hardcore Humanism Podcast, I explained to him how I paradoxically felt better when listening to his melancholy music. And Wainwright shared how he connected with many other singer-songwriters of his generation who also explored deep emotional themes. “People like Jeff Buckley, Elliott Smith, Kurt Cobain … I was always struck … how amazing their music was,” Wainwright told me. “But also, how kind of nihilistic and … enveloped in darkness.”

Those artists definitely had their own unique art form and vibe. But it felt distinct from what I experienced listening to Wainwright. For example, when I listened to Nirvana’s rendition of Lead Belly’s “Where Did You Sleep Last Night,” this was not melancholy. This was darkness with no daylight. Wainwright reflected on the difference between his approach and that of his peers, “What I tended to do was to kind of get into the darkness … but then, by the same token, try to get out of it. I would always search for the light, I would always search for … the silver lining.”

Wainwright traces both his darkness and need for light in part to his struggle as a gay man coming of age in the ’80s. Discovering his sexuality was shrouded in the shadow of the emerging HIV/AIDS epidemic. “When I was supposed to have this … glorious awakening … It was really shattered by the shadow of death, he said. “I basically thought I was going to die every week.”

Compounding Wainwright’s fear of contracting this deadly disease was the stigma and discrimination that surrounded HIV/AIDS and the gay community. “I remember when I was around 10 or 11 being in school. And AIDs was ravaging, as I said before, the gay male population...,” he recalled. “A couple of teachers would say, ‘Oh, yeah, well, they deserve it’ … It was terrible. And doom and gloom and loneliness and darkness.”

And yet at the same time as Wainwright was experiencing severe darkness, he found light in an underground gay culture that was vibrant and supportive. “There was this real underground, very luscious, very interesting, very appealing, very loving gay scene that had this sort of real passion there,” he described. “And there was a sort of camaraderie amongst those who felt this oppression … In retrospect, I wouldn't trade that experience for anything.

“I needed to get out of the darkness.”

Soon his struggle between exploring darkness and finding the light expanded to his own art. Wainwright particularly cites the opera for having a huge effect on his artistic identity. Wainwright has composed and performed two operas—Prima Donna (2009) and Hadrian (2018). And very similar to people who struggle with depression or anxiety mulling over and struggling to understand themselves, their lives, and a way to move forward, so do opera characters go through a transformation. “This transformation that the characters go through, where they are completely either devastated or they're renewed,” he said.

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And according to Wainwright, the goal is for the audience to have a similar experience where they are brought through a metamorphosis. “Looking at these works by these great composers,” he said. “Realizing that the whole point of that kind of exercise is to really shatter the audience … I like to set up a construct that really engages the kind of dramatic side of the brain and really grasps the listener, and forces them through this journey.”

And so, we get to “Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk.” During our conversation, Wainwright discussed his struggle with addiction and his recovery. And he explained how the song explored the mixed feelings many of us have towards our more harmful, yet at times enjoyable, behaviors. “That song is definitely imbued with a very dark undercurrent and I'm walking a type of tightrope,” he described. “On one hand, it's kind of celebratory, now but you do get the sense that I can just crumble any minute. And, and that's, in fact, what occurred.”

On Wainwright’s new album, Unfollow The Rules, and in his new live stream concert series, “A Rufus-Retro-Wainwright-Spective,” he is exploring those same emotions but from a different place—as a husband, father, and established artist. And yet despite the fact that his life is in a good place, he is wary to be respectful of exploring his darkness creatively. He finds that using his imagination rather than personal experience is a strong method for imbuing darker themes into his music while not having to experience them directly. “You're constantly drawn to the darker regions of the world, and you kind of play with, you know, the more kind of combustible elements that exist,” Wainwright explained. “Like, you have to go there to get inspired and you don't have to partake necessarily. You don't have to even be present ... It's something that I have to, on one hand play with and also put back in its cage.”

But on a personal level, Wainwright is very respectful of the darkness he’s experienced and the importance of allowing himself to explore those feelings so that he, like his opera characters can transform and emerge triumphant. “If I kind of discard or tried to annihilate my darker kind of imagination … if I don't give it its due occasionally, mentally, I will suffer from extreme depression,” Wainwright said. “There's a kind of life force that comes out of that … the darker side. And if you deny it, then it'll really take you down. But then also, you can't give into it at the same time...

“It's a hard wrestle."