The Art Teacher

"The Art Teacher"
Song by Rufus Wainwright
from the EP Waiting for a Want
Released June 29, 2004 (2004-06-29)
Length 4:00 (Waiting for a Want)[1]
3:51 (Want Two)[2]
Songwriter(s) Rufus Wainwright
Waiting for a Want track listing
"The Art Teacher"
(1)		 "Gay Messiah"
(2)

"The Art Teacher" is a song written and performed by American-Canadian singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright. It originally appeared on his EP, Waiting for a Want, which was released by DreamWorks Records in June 2004 as a preview of his fourth studio album, Want Two, which was released by Geffen Records in November 2004. "The Art Teacher" appears on other releases in Wainwright's discography, including Live at the Fillmore, a concert film accompanying Want Two, and Vibrate: The Best of Rufus Wainwright and Rufus Wainwright: Live from the Artists Den, both of which were released in 2014.

Composition

"The Art Teacher" was written and performed by Wainwright.[2] According to the singer, the song was inspired by a straight male teacher who shared stories about his female students with crushes on him.[3] Wainwright said, "It's a song about a guy I met at the gym who of course was straight. He'd tell me stories about his female students who were ravenous for him. So I put myself in their shoes to write the song. I played it for him and it went totally over his head!"[3]

The song's music has been compared to Philip Glass' work, with Wainwright's "round vocals [leaping from deep lows to piqued highs".[4] Pitchfork's Stephen Deusner describes "The Art Teacher" as "a woman remembering her first love, the instructor of the title who turned her on to Romantic painter J. M. W. Turner... over a Philip Glass prism of piano chords, a plaintive horn, and a slightly sped-up tempo".[5] Youa Vang of City Pages described the song as melancholic, with a "rumbling" piano part.[6]

Lyrically, the piano ballad describes a middle-aged woman's recollection of an "unrequited schoolgirl crush".[7][8] Bud Scoppa of Paste described the song as a short story "in which a lonely woman looks back on a delirious schoolgirl crush",[9] and Mojo's Danny Eccleston said Wainwright "[inhabits] a woman's lifelong obsession with the titular pedagogue, as she relives a school trip to an art museum".[10] According to Vang, the song tells the story "of a young girl who fell in love with her art teacher, telling how first loves are always the most intense and how no one after can compare".[6] In 2014, Drowned in Sound's Marc Burrows called the song an exploration of Wainwright's sexuality.[11] In addition to Turner, the song's lyrics reference painters Peter Paul Rubens and Rembrandt as the teacher escorts his students through the Metropolitan Museum of Art.[12][13]

Performances

Wainwright performing in 2008

"The Art Teacher" originally appeared on Wainwright's EP, Waiting for a Want,[1] which was released by DreamWorks Records in June 2004 as a preview of his fourth studio album, Want Two, which was released by Geffen Records in November 2004.[2] These versions were recorded live and, according to The Guardian's Alexis Petridis, "unadorned – you can hear Wainwright gasping for breath between each line".[7] The EP version was recorded live at Le Metropolis in Montreal,[13] and is slightly different from the version Want Two version, which features an overdubbed horn solo.[14][15]

The song appears on other releases in Wainwright's discography, including Live at the Fillmore, a concert film accompanying Want Two.[2] The Want Two version also appears on Vibrate: The Best of Rufus Wainwright,[16][17] the greatest hits album released in February 2014 by Universal Music Enterprises in Australia and Ireland, and in other nations subsequently. Wainwright performs "The Art Teacher" on Rufus Wainwright: Live from the Artists Den, which was recorded in 2012 and released by Artists Den Records and Universal Music Enterprises in March 2014.[10]

Wainwright performed the song on NPR Music's "Tiny Desk Concerts" series in August 2012.[18] In December 2012, he performed "The Art Teacher", among other songs, at Grammy Museum at L.A. Live's Clive Davis Theater as part of the museum's "An Evening With" series.[19] Wainwright performed the song on the 22nd episode of American Public Media's program "Wits" ("Kristen Schaal with Rufus Wainwright"), which aired in April 2013.[6][20]

Wainwright has also performed the song live in concert.[4][21][22] In his review of Wainwright's 2016 concert at Bristol's Colston Hall, Lou Trimby wrote: "Wainwright also writes brilliantly from the point of view of a woman – a prime example being 'The Art Teacher' which tells one of the saddest stories committed to music. His rendition convinced you that he was the female protagonist, not just playing a part but inhabiting her psyche."[23]

Reception

"The Art Teacher" has received a generally positive critical reception. Petridis called the song "lovely".[7] In this review of Waiting for a Want, Scoppa said "The Art Teacher" and "This Love Affair" were more engaging than the EP's two other tracks ("Gay Messiah" and "Waiting for a Dream").[9] Robert Christgau said the song "is worth saving" in his review of Want Two, in which he gave the album a "B–" rating.[24]

In Eccleston's review of Live from the Artists Den, he describes "The Art Teacher" as "a great, great song" and one of Wainwright's "best-loved numbers and for good reason". He writes, "It's transformational... The tragedy of her unspoken love seems to resonate endlessly, as if bouncing mercilessly around in your chest."[10] Sarah Metz, a media arts specialist for the National Endowment for the Arts and contributor to its "Art Works Blog", related "The Art Teacher" to one of her own experiences in her 2015 article, "My Artist Crush: Rufus Wainwright": "I had developed a huge crush on one of my English teachers in high school, and was in awe of how he perfectly captured those feelings in a four-minute song."[8]

In 2008, Brandon Summers of The Helio Sequence said the song introduced him to Wainwright's music, and now consider the singer-songwriter an artist he most admires.[25] "The Art Teacher" appears on the soundtrack to Peter Hinton's 2013 stage adaptation of Oscar Wilde's Lady Windermere's Fan (1892).[26]

References

  1. 1 2 "Rufus Wainwright: Waiting for a Want". AllMusic. All Media Network. Retrieved February 9, 2017.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Collar, Matt. "Rufus Wainwright: Want Two". AllMusic. Retrieved February 9, 2017.
  3. 1 2 "Biography". Geffen Records. December 23, 2004. Archived from the original on February 24, 2012. Retrieved February 9, 2017.
  4. 1 2 Amorosi, A.D. (May 22, 2016). "Rufus Wainwright at the Foundry: Bewitched, bothered and bewildered". The Philadelphia Inquirer. Philadelphia Media Network. ISSN 0885-6613. Retrieved February 10, 2017.
  5. ↑ Deusner, Stephen (November 15, 2004). "Rufus Wainwright: Want Two". Pitchfork. Condé Nast. Retrieved February 10, 2017.
  6. 1 2 3 Vang, Youa (April 15, 2013). "Rufus Wainwright & Kristen Schaal at Wits, 4/12/13". City Pages. Minneapolis: The Star Tribune Company. ISSN 0744-0456. Retrieved February 9, 2017.
  7. 1 2 3 Petridis, Alexis (February 25, 2005). "Rufus Wainwright, Want Two". The Guardian. London: Guardian Media Group. ISSN 0261-3077. OCLC 60623878. Retrieved February 9, 2017.
  8. 1 2 Metz, Sarah K. (June 24, 2015). "My Artist Crush: Rufus Wainwright". National Endowment for the Arts. Retrieved February 9, 2017.
  9. 1 2 Scoppa, Bud (October 1, 2004). "Rufus Wainwright – Waiting for a Want". Paste. Paste Media Group. Retrieved February 9, 2017.
  10. 1 2 3 Eccelston, Danny (February 2, 2014). "Rufus Wainwright Revisits The Art Teacher". Mojo. Bauer Media Group. ISSN 1351-0193. Retrieved February 9, 2017.
  11. ↑ Burrows, Marc (March 20, 2014). ""That song drove me to life" – DiS meets Rufus Wainwright". Drowned in Sound. Silentway. Retrieved February 10, 2017.
  12. ↑ Lester, Paul (July 8, 2008). "Pop and Rock: Rufus Wainwright: Kenwood House, London". The Guardian. Retrieved February 11, 2017.
  13. 1 2 Hoskyns, Barney (March 8, 2005). "Rufus Wainwright – Want Two". Uncut. Time Inc. UK. ISSN 1368-0722. Retrieved February 11, 2017.
  14. ↑ Waiting for a Want (CD insert). Rufus Wainwright. DreamWorks Records. 2004.
  15. ↑ Want Two (CD insert). Rufus Wainwright. Geffen Records. 2004.
  16. ↑ Chris, Coplan (January 13, 2014). "Rufus Wainwright announces best-of collection, stream new song "Me and Liza"". Consequence of Sound. Retrieved February 9, 2017.
  17. ↑ Trendell, Andrew (December 12, 2013). "Rufus Wainwright Announces 2014 UK Tour, Tickets on Sale Now". Gigwise. Retrieved February 9, 2017.
  18. ↑ "Tiny Desk: Rufus Wainwright". NPR. August 20, 2012. Retrieved February 10, 2017.
  19. ↑ "Rufus Wainwright Visits the Grammy Museum". Grammy.com. The Recording Academy. December 12, 2012. Retrieved February 10, 2017.
  20. ↑ "Episode 22: Kristen Schaal with Rufus Wainwright". American Public Media. Retrieved February 9, 2017.
  21. ↑ Vozick-Levinson, Simon (May 10, 2012). "Rufus Wainwright Shines in Brooklyn". Rolling Stone. Retrieved February 10, 2017.
  22. ↑ Alger, Anna (January 14, 2016). "Rufus Wainwright and the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra". Exclaim!. Toronto. ISSN 1207-6600. Retrieved February 10, 2017.
  23. ↑ Trimby, Lou (July 19, 2016). "Review: Rufus Wainwright, Colston Hall". Bristol24-7. Retrieved February 10, 2017.
  24. ↑ Christgau, Robert. "Rufus Wainwright". RobertChristgau.com. Retrieved February 9, 2017.
  25. ↑ Handler, Shane (February 6, 2008). "The Helio Sequence: Eyes Forward". Glide Magazine. Retrieved February 11, 2017.
  26. ↑ Nestruck, J. Kelly (June 10, 2013). "Lady Windermere’s Fan an essential stop at the Shaw Festival this summer". The Globe and Mail. Toronto: The Woodbridge Company. ISSN 0319-0714. Retrieved February 11, 2017.
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