rufus.

Oh, to be a Wainwright. Oh, to have stuck with piano lessons, to have realized when I started that there was more to it than toiling away in the cold basement for an hour a day, more than plunking out Kokomo chords, more than books of Minuets and Greensleeves. Our bookish parents made Matt and me literate, made us packrats; they made us introspective and intellectual and, well, hell, they even paid for the piano lessons... and my flute, Matt's trombone, guitar, harmonica, slide whistle, and keyboard... and one (just one) week of ballet... but they couldn't give me the interlinear intensity of a Wainwright.

Rufus missed his sister, Martha, last night. He missed her in a way that Matt will likely never miss me -- he requested that the audience at Princeton's McCarter Theater, an audience populated mostly by older folks dressed up for the night out, actually SING Martha's part. Didn't need to teach it, didn't need to plunk it out on the piano first... just played out a few lines on the guitar and waited for the shy melodic airy high part to kick in. And it did. And it was a thing of absolutely simple beauty: "I miss Martha."

Little sister come and sit beside me, beside me
and we'll play a tune on this old piano forte
just for awhile, just for awhile, just for awhile
till your hair becomes a powdered wig, and I become a total bastard
feet that hardly reach the pedal, sold to a tremendous shadow
ave history is on my side
so complain, have no shame
and remember that your brother is a boy
-Little Sister, Rufus Wainwright.