The bout for his wonderful 9th record Unfollow The Rules - his first pop album since 2012'south Out of the Game, after 2015'southward opera Prima Donna, and 2016's Take All My Loves: nine Shakespeare Sonnets - has been moved to adjacent year, yet Wainwright has simply kept playing.

Too as being the commencement artist to perform The Royal Albert Home Series, Wainwright turned his #RobeRecitals series on Instagram, where he would occasionally play a song from his bedroom in his dressing gown, into a daily #Quarantunes series. Starting with "Grey Gardens", he described the Herculean venture with his trademark humor, "Let this exist role of the antidote to this situation that we're in." Wainwright concluded upwardly performing sixty songs from his home in Los Angeles, mixing his own compositions with covers, and finishing with Stephen Foster's "Hard Times Come up Again No More" where he was joined by the extended Wainwright clan.

Before lockdown happened, when we meet in London, he's in high spirits, excited by the limitless possibilities of travel, that unbeknownst to the world, would be put on hold shortly after. "Today is a mean solar day of interviews here, tomorrow in that location's a French pick of my soul, then a Spanish pick of my soul, so a German one and and so finally Polish." He laughs and says, "Then I did something wrong! Because I'yard wanted everywhere."

Equally we showtime to talk through his Nine Songs, Wainwright realises he has a determination to brand. In the k scheme of things, it's a relatively minor one, just for a music obsessive it requires serious thought on his office. "Is it ten songs, or was it supposed to be nine? It'due south hard to drop 1 of these." We talk through all ten and when nosotros finish, I inquire which song he wants to drop. He pauses and decides that "Adore" by Miley Cyrus volition exist the ane that doesn't brand the cut.

"I wanted to exist somewhat 21st Century and give information technology an honourable mention. I thought information technology was important to have something relatively contemporary." Wainwright explains that whilst he was initially sceptical near the former Hannah Montana star, something nigh "Adore" prompted a rethink.

"I had always poo-pooed Miley Cyrus, I thought it was so ridiculous and that she was trying likewise hard. I was quite jaded apropos her, as I am oftentimes with a lot of people, but and then my friend played me this song and it convinced me that I'k actually pro Miley Cyrus. There's something in it, a vulnerability, a lyrical quality that'south very poetic, and that's something that'due south difficult to notice."

Turning to the songs that made the cut, as with the finale of #Quarantunes, his family unit relationships provide the spine to the themes that run through them, peculiarly his honey Mother, the late Kate McGarrigle. He speaks with awe about her talent equally a writer and starts his Nine Songs with her archetype "Talk to Me of Mendocino" and ends it with the French folk song "À la Claire Fontaine", which the Wainwright's sang to McGarrigle every bit she passed away.

As a natural storyteller, Wainwright'southward choices are filled with tales - from not seeing eye to centre with Liza Minnelli, to visiting Verdi'southward firm and feeling like he'd returned to his spiritual father - only equally well family, the other keystone to these stories is his enduring love of music. Regardless of the genre, whether it'due south pop, classical, folk or opera, Wainwright'due south fascination with the power of song remains delightfully undimmed.

"Talk to Me of Mendocino" by Kate McGarrigle

"When my Mum died ten years agone, on the ane manus I was of form incredibly pitiful. I missed her, she was also young to get and in that location was then much of my life that I notwithstanding wanted to share with her. But some other part of me was very angry, because I was very jealous of her songwriting. Somehow in dying it gave her that extra patina; 'At present she's going to exist a fucking archetype and I'm going to have to contend with that for the residue of my life!'

"Fifty-fifty though she was brought upwards in Canada and always identified as a Canadian, she really loved the U.s. and this song is one of those sweeping American ballads that she composed. It really captures the latitude of the country and that journeying to the W Coast that humanity has been obsessed with for years.

"I don't know if "Talk to Me of Mendocino" is her greatest song, but for me information technology's certainly her most allegorical song. Information technology's the i that when I was growing up, she would do it at shows and immediately the audience would applaud and acknowledge it as this milestone in her work.

"I remember at this signal in her life she was free; her personality is very much encapsulated in that piece and in a m way. She was e'er a traveller, she was always falling in dearest with dissimilar people and running off with them and stuff. In a quaint, romantic way though, she never abased us or anything.

"I would play her things of mine all the time. We always discussed it and she was always really engaged in my process. Then she'd play me stuff that she was working on and my socks were ever knocked off past her and what she would bring up.

"The moment she died I really understood, equally, the bang-up loss of having her equally a Female parent and that a swell artist had passed. There was something celebratory in that, it was 'Wow, look at this incredible legacy she'southward left Martha and I.' We were very much influenced by her when we were growing up, thankfully."

"The Homo That Got Away" by Cole Porter

"This song was written by Harold Arlen. I've sang it, but Judy Garland's is the most famous version. It was written for her, she launched the song and information technology will be forever associated with her.

"For one thing, I adore the unusual construction the song has. It has two sections that morph into something unlike and there'southward this mounting army of musical ideas that eventually explode at the terminate of the slice. Information technology'southward very much like an aria and it has this operatic quality, which I love.

"The other affair is that when I sang it for the beginning time publicly, when I did the Judy Garland prove at Carnegie Hall, unbeknownst to me a lot of people immediately translated my sentiments to that of a boy - specifically a gay boy - singing about a Father. Patently it could be 'the man who got abroad' and 'Yep, I'm gay, I could be singing about another homo', merely oddly enough, I think in the desperation the vocal engenders information technology's more touching if y'all think of it in terms of a relationship between a son and a Father.

"I wasn't aware of it, but in hindsight I can see why people were going there. There's something in 'I tin can meet a man beingness devastated by some other man', merely it was written for a adult female and for a heterosexual situation. I remember when I sang information technology, it somehow translated into this other equation, which is more nearly losing a parent.

"The other songs in that evidence all fabricated full sense, but there were two songs, this 1, which because it was written for a woman and information technology's imbued with that spirit, people didn't think of it as a romantic song for me, and "Stormy Conditions" which is as well past Harold Arlen. That one I had Martha sing, because it really should be sung by a woman.

"I grew up with Judy Garland, in the sense that my generation was right before video cassettes. When I was a kid you couldn't rent movies, and so you could merely see movies in movie theatres or if they were on television. Every Easter The Wizard of Oz was on, information technology was this yearly effect and it heavily influenced me equally a child.

"Later, when I went to alive in Hollywood, I totally fantasied virtually Judy Garland'south life there, where she'd been and what she'd done, and I saw her in all the aging artefacts of old Hollywood. Subsequently, when I got into drugs and stuff, I could relate to her on that level as well. So she's been a companion of mine for years. I consider her a friend.

"Sadly, Liza didn't actually appreciate my obsession then much. Nosotros've crossed paths a few times and it always ended upwardly beingness… I don't know, it e'er went south between her and I, but things went quite well with Lorna, the other daughter. In terms of Judy Garland, I don't in any manner merits to surpass her might or take on her mantle, only I am nonetheless, for my generation and downwards, a very important figure in the Judy Garland ethos, for meliorate for worse. So there, Liza."

"Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" by Eurythmics

"This was a seminal piece of music for me. When I showtime heard this - actually, more of an apt expression is when I came into contact with information technology - it was this alien cosmos that discovered me.

"I was almost xi. It was that early, pre-pubescent age where you can hear the echoes in the coulee and that something's going to come out of the wood pretty soon. This song was my awakening equally a sexual being and I all of a sudden started thinking nigh love and the wonders of teenagehood. There was something in Annie Lennox'southward presentation, with her look and the cold quality of what she was offering, that was just then seductive and it made me excited to get older.

"I understood it immediately, in the sense that I was seduced completely and I pretty much cruel in dear with her as a child. On the i hand in that location was something violent about what she was saying and it was kind of scary, simply nonetheless information technology was enticing. It wasn't gratuitously dangerous and it wasn't mean. It was very heady.

"In that location was a lot of music effectually in my world at that age, and that was a neat year also. There was Eurythmics, Cyndi Lauper, Tina Turner and Prince. There were all of these wild, archetype, legendary, oddities. You call up of them all in their outfits and the fact that they were all doing music that was so different. They were like Gods, these individual Greek Gods, that you could pray to depending on the solar day. It was part of that menstruation of music, which was a fantastic menstruation.

"I remember "Sweet Dreams" is one of the greatest tracks in the history of music and recording, without a dubiety. Unlike a lot of all that calculator stuff, it never got encapsulated in some other era and information technology nonetheless sounds very current. That song never ages."

"Begin The Beguine" by Cole Porter

"I enjoy singing this song, although I don't think I've ever released it. I don't have a particular version of it, but I would say the Ella Fitzgerald version is the 1 I know the best, considering at a young age I became very obsessed with the Ella Fitzgerald and Cole Porter songbook records.

"This song has always fascinated me. What I love about "Brainstorm The Beguine" is that it's an incredible matrimony of lyrics and music and it takes you lot on this journey that is then all-enveloping. Once y'all follow the opening lines and yous go along with it, you're transported into this film substantially. Then you get to the moving-picture show, the storm comes, everything turns to shit and you lot can't leave the pic. It'due south a bit like "Hotel California", that's what information technology's always represented to me.

"Another matter about this song is that according to some guru somewhere, if you lot listen to it seven times in a row yous'll get closer to enlightenment. Some guru said 'Simply sit there, listen to "Begin The Beguine" seven times and you lot'll go further ahead. I don't recall y'all'll reach enlightenment necessarily, but it can be an exercise on the path to enlightenment.'

"I did that and look at me now, I'm a God! Well, no, but I tried it and it was a nice thing to do in the afternoon. I think I was also really stoned and so I was probably at one with myself to begin with, but it's worth a shot, try it.

"I mind to the Ella Fitzgerald and Cole Porter recordings now and they are incredible. Ella Fitzgerald actually spoke to me at that young age because of her incredible instrument, vocal prowess and the things she could do, just at present there are singers that are a little bit more than interesting to me. I'thou much more into Sarah Vaughan and in that location are other jazz singers I adopt from that era.

"They were a niggling rougher around the edges and they weren't quite as perfect, but at that historic period, I was eleven or twelve when I heard Ella Fitzgerald's voice, it was like nix else I'd ever experienced earlier."

"Surabaya Johnny" by Kurt Weill

"The version of this song that I grew up with was past Lotte Lenya, who was married to Kurt Weill. She was one of the great actors and she was in a James Bond movie too, with the knives in her shoes.

"What this vocal represents for me - and it continues to haunt me - is the perfect matrimony between the classical world, the popular world and theatre, which Kurt Weill created with The Threepenny Opera and some of his other work. He managed to take European sophistication and friction match it for the full general public. With Brecht he made this hybrid that was both very high art and very low fine art, all happening at the aforementioned time and without compromising either 1.

"This song is one of the great masterpieces of that era. I heard it recently, Meow Meow, who is a skilful friend of mine, does a version of "Surabaya Johnny" and information technology's 1 of my favourite new versions of it. I was in Commonwealth of australia and saw her bear witness, she's this great Australian performer who works with Barry Humphries a lot.

"That vocal always packs a punch and the story is very touching. Again, I would never sing this song, it's a song that I think just a woman can sing and really pull information technology off. Information technology's most this desperate love and I call back that whilst men experience desperate love, I don't know if they experience it as much equally women, in that kind of "The Man That Got Away" sense.

"Maybe I'll be attacked for being sexist and weird, but at that place's a kind of destitution that only women can do, at to the lowest degree in songs. Most of these songs were written by men, so there's something weird in there, but "Surabaya Johnny" is some other song that I recall needs to be sung by a woman."

"Di Provenza" from La Traviata by Giuseppe Verdi

"This is from the opera La Traviata. There are so many versions of information technology, just if I was going to try and choose i information technology could be Leonard Warren, or it could be Thomas Hampson, he's a great singer.

"I've always admired Verdi and he'due south always been a male parent effigy for me, both musically and spiritually. I've often constitute myself contemplating 'What would Verdi think?' Not because he was a particularly nice person, Verdi was non like a cuddly kind Dad; if anything, he was a lot like my Male parent, not that my Begetter's hateful. Verdi was a hard homo, just he knew how to navigate through life pretty well and to do what suited his needs, both musically and also businesswise, which I've never quite figured out.

"In the opera this song is sung by the Father, it's an aria to his son and it's a very touching sentiment. Basically, the son is having this torrid affair and information technology'southward ruining the family's reputation. The Male parent needs to take him go out her, considering in the 19th Century it wasn't possible to exercise that kind of matter if you were from a skillful family unit.

"The Father is saying "Come up back abode, come back to the dominicus of Provence, come up back to the bosom of the family" and it'due south touching, because at the cease of the opera the Begetter and the lover, Violetta, the one he was trying to separate up with his son, become very close too. Information technology's just an unfortunate circumstance they had to bust up that human relationship.

"I had an experience a few years agone where I went to visit Verdi's abode in Italian republic. I had this song playing in the sound organisation every bit I was driving up the driveway to his business firm and I totally lost it. I was 'I'1000 visiting Dad!' Information technology was very emotional, equally Verdi's music always is to me."

"Der Leiermann" from Winterreise past Franz Schubert

"At that place's a lot of versions of this likewise. There'due south Fischer-Dieskau, only the one I grew up with, which I'g finding difficult to notice - I can't even discover it on iTunes - is past Brigitte Fassbaender who's a corking singer.

"I would say "Der Leiermann" is arguably - and this I would offer as a argue issue for classical music aficionados - the greatest Lieder song ever written. It's definitely one of the contenders. It's at the end of the Winterreise by Schubert, which is perhaps the greatest Lieder cycle e'er written, it's certainly one of the most important and I think the greatest written, ever.

"In that location's something well-nigh it. In one case y'all've heard the whole cycle - Lieder's are all nearly cycles and most Lieder songs have to be office of a group of songs - and you achieve this vocal after the very long journey of listening to all of the other ones, the event is earth shattering. Information technology's and so simple, information technology'southward so eerie and it'southward so imbued with all of the drama that you've heard before, but yet it's not played out. There's too something very 20th Century about information technology. It suddenly skips into another century.

"So, if I had to say 'What'due south the greatest Lieder song ever written?' I would say it's this one and there would be other people who would agree with me, who know about it also.

"Information technology'south a subtle affair. Yeah, I think that in that location are songs in Lieder that are more apparently great and that are incredible, like The Erl-King or these masterpieces which are huge, but there'due south something so strange about this song, and in terms of that whole Lieder concept, it's the pay off."

"Suzanne" by Leonard Cohen

"I'thousand plain associated a lot with him for many reasons, ane of them being "Hallelujah", which by the way is not my favourite Leonard Cohen song.

"I never intended for that song to be a kind of calling card, which information technology has go and I'g grateful for that fact, but before "Hallelujah" - which simply happened in my lifetime, and my later lifetime for that thing, later on the age of 20-v - the most famous Leonard Cohen song was "Suzanne." That was the Leonard Cohen vocal and his emblematic anthem.

"Perhaps it's because I'g erstwhile-fashioned, simply I definitely buy into that vision of Leonard. Whereas "Hallelujah" is a dandy song certainly, and it's more than in melody with the battles of everyday people and a struggle for love, what's wonderful about "Suzanne" is that it'southward so esoteric. Information technology'southward has all of these references to images that I can run into because I'm from Montreal, like the harbour church, the garbage and the flowers. You meet that kind of stuff in Montreal, and it really comes from Montreal, but yet it'southward likewise very personal and retains a certain mystery. It always has that mystery.

"Another matter about this vocal is I made an album in 2017 of Canadian songs (Northern Stars). It isn't available and you can only buy information technology at my shows, but it has my version of "Suzanne" on there. I of my chief goals was that Leonard had just passed abroad and I wanted to award his passing and I did that past singing "Suzanne" in the church that information technology's written about.

"It's in old Montreal, on the harbour and it's called Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours - 'Our Lady of the Harbour'. I concluded up doing an evening of Canadian songs, but the crowning moment was to sing "Suzanne" in the church that he'south referring to. That, in a lot of means, was my cheerio to him and my personal prayer for his deliverance."

"À la Claire Fontaine"

"This is a very famous French folk vocal, but information technology'south equally famous in France and Quebec. It's an ancient vocal, "À la Claire Fontaine" is arguably a k years one-time.

"I've sung this song, and we've sung information technology in the family for years. It goes on and on and on, merely it becomes like a lullaby, it lasts a good seven minutes - or x minutes if y'all take your time - then it's a good thing to sing for a child. It's likewise like shooting fish in a barrel to think, because the finish of each poetry is the beginning of the next.

"It's an interesting song, because when you really analyse the story it's actually one of those not bad folk songs that'southward completely sexual. It'southward completely about this very adult bailiwick but its covered with these ancient symbols, similar 'putting my roses in your garden, but you wouldn't allow me to practise that', so it's very touching.

"The near profound element of this vocal for me now is that I had this incredible experience with information technology when my Female parent was dying. She had lost consciousness and was basically in a coma and we were all sitting around her singing and telling her how much we loved her. She was probably at that place in a sense, but she was on her way somewhere else. We all started singing this song and she came dorsum… for like a moment.

"The song is was what brought her back to usa for an instant and and so she went back once again. Information technology was sung to me equally a child, it was sung to my Mother as a child, and downwards for many generations of people with French backgrounds. It was definitely because of the generational ability that a folk song has in culture. It was very intense, so this song represents that."

Unfollow The Rules is out at present via BMG