All Days Are Nights: Songs for Lulu (Bonus Track Version)

The spare, dramatic work on All Days Are Nights is a mixed bag of sorts, though the sonics and somber mood never waver. Moving away from the lush orchestration of Release the Stars, the tunes here are built on nothing more than piano and Wainwright’s passionate tenor. His methods vary from borrowing Shakespearean sonnets to incorporating an aria—"Les feux d'artifice t'appellent"—from Wainwright’s own 2009 opera, Prima Donna. Wainwright wrote this material during the long struggle of his mother (musician Kate McGarrigle) with cancer, and the record came together in the wake of her January 2010 death. A dark, mournful tone permeates, though Wainwright is mourning more than his mother’s passing. He muses on bad romance and “repressed cads” on “Sad with What I Have” and “What Would I Ever Do with a Rose?” and examines unfulfilled desires on “The Dream.” The deep sadness and pain of loss is palpable as he sings to his sister in “Martha” and on the tender “Zebulon.” And the sonnets—originally for a 2009 stage production in Berlin—are achingly beautiful things.