Songs to get addicted to

Artist: Rufus Wainwright
Song: Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk (listen)
Album: Poses (buy)

Writing songs that are truly from the heart and that are intrinsic to your being is difficult. Of course it is. If it were easy, the Cheeky Girls would probably have released a beautifully poetic ballad on the struggles of a harsh life in Romania and Lady Gaga would be writing powerfully emotive songs about how difficult it is wear such few clothes and still hide her man parts. The issue is then writing something that means a lot to you but doesn’t come across as too self involved and pretentious. A tough task, especially since having already taken the role of songwriter, you have decided that the rest of the world needs to hear your own personal musings. How do you keep the vanity out?

Here, dear reader, is where I believe Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk comes into its own. I’m not trying to claim that it is unique in the fact that it’s a song which manages to be heartfelt and not-conceited but it does manage to roll so many different lyrical elements into one. It manages to be easily relatable, with you agreeing with each of the small temptations of everyday life, “If I should buy jellybeans, Have to eat them all in just one sitting”.

At the same time it feels so personal as Rufus Wainwright tiptoes gingerly around his own darker periods; when his addictions turned “A little bit deadly”, with the subtle change of key on “And then there’s those other things” throwing a sudden dark veil over what was developing into an uncomplicated ditty about life’s little temptations. So subtle though, that you can listen to it many a time and not even notice the darker more wizened lyrics, causing such complex and tumultuous emotions to appear utterly understandable.

Finally, it doesn’t shroud itself in ambiguity. Sometimes the beauty of a song is embedded in its hidden meanings and the listener’s ability to extrapolate their own understanding, however, this song manages to take the cigarettes and jelly beans and Raggedy Andy’s of everyday existence and weave them into a complex elegy to the vices that are struggled through by each of us.

Yours indulgently,
JoewMo