Tuesday, December 4, 2007

Rufus Wainwright

Cigarettes and 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 won't mention
Everything about them is a little bit stranger, a little bit harder

A little bit deadly
Its not 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's not very smart
Tends to make one part
So brokenhearted
Still there's not a show on my back
Holes or a friendly intervention
I'm 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

There's something here that is true to the human experience, even the Christian experience--we are at an in-between: between this world, which is fallen, and the next. And there is no overcoming that. Eric Voegelin calls this the metaxy. Rufus Wainwright identifies it, imaginatively as the tower of pisa, a lesson in tightropes, and surfing. Also, his question of place and how he ties it to an understanding of being in the in-between is interesting. He understands himself as a traveler, dislocated from his place of origin: "Always been a shoe made for the city," "adios Kansas," and "prodigal sons." Particularly with the reference to prodigal sons, he sees himself as someone who has left his home (with the potential there for return; unless this is just a jab at those who criticize his lifestyle). Yet he is conscious of where he comes from and afraid to disappoint others through his vices, although he never ignores his vices nor treats them as anything other than vices. Additionally, there is an argument against nostalgia and naivety in the reference to Raggedy Andy.

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