Want One

The album's opener, "Oh What a World", has been described as a, "choir of harmonies building to a full orchestra that finds Wainwright leading what can only be described as a masterpiece of horns, harmonies and hope".[15] "I Don't Know What It Is", the album's first single, "climbs to a soaring Beatles-esque climax of train rides".[15] Wainwright revealed the source and meaning of the song:

When I first came up with the lines, I don't know what it is, but you got to do it/ I don't know where to go but you got to be there, I was at this party for The Strokes in New York. There was this prevailing sense of, 'We're not quite sure what's happening or what is cool, but we know that it's somewhere around here, in this room.' It was this vague confusion, with everybody kind of sniffing for blood. It wasn't that it was a bad party, or that I don't like The Strokes; I just think there's a lot of confusion right now in the music business. Then, later on, I realized the song was really personal. I didn't know where I was, and I didn't know I was actually lost. It wasn't about the party at all; it's about searching but not knowing what you're searching for. There's the train motif, being on this train heading for either oblivion or salvation – and just holding on for dear life. That song came down from some mountain somewhere, because it was right after I wrote it that I sort of packed it in.[16]

"Vicious World", which features "soft, Björkian keyboards and twinkling electronic sounds" and "sounds like it's got about 350 multi-tracked vocals", has been characterized by Wainwright as "one of those happy/sad songs", referring to the song's joyous sound but negative lyrics.[17][18] Wainwright said the following of "Movies of Myself", with its "straight-ahead bounce, drum-led clip, and aberrant guitar crunch":[19]

The song is about knowing the end result of every situation you're in, and being able to play it out in your mind and see it before it happens. It's about addiction, really, about knowing how it's all going to end up. In that sense, you're watching a movie of yourself all the time – and then you want out of that movie.[16]

Slant Magazine's Sal Cinquemani described "Go or Go Ahead" as a "multi-tiered, emotionally-charged epic that could pass for a paranoid Radiohead song".[15]

"Dinner at Eight" is one of many songs from the Wainwright family about inter-familial strife.[20] It was composed in response to a fight with Rufus's father, acclaimed singer-songwriter Loudon Wainwright III. The two had recently finished a photo shoot for Rolling Stone and were eating together when Rufus joked that his success had gotten his father back into the magazine. This escalated into a very heated exchange. Rufus composed the song later that night; its title refers to the meal and makes reference to the fight in the lyrics. It also recounts his father leaving the family when Rufus was young.[21] Though unreleased as a single in the U.S., Rufus performed the song on Late Show with David Letterman on October 6, 2013.[22]

The title of the first track comes from The Wizard of Oz, in which the Wicked Witch of the West screams "Oh, what a world! What a world!" as she is melting away. Maurice Ravel's Boléro is musically referenced throughout the track.[23] "I Don't Know What It Is" contains several allusions to the American sitcom Three's Company, specifically the opening theme song, with phrases such as "Take a step that is new", "...thinks Three's Company", and "So I knock on the door". The lyrics "Taking the Santa Fe and the Atchison, Topeka" is a reference to Judy Garland's 1946 musical film The Harvey Girls, which itself contains a reference to the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway with the song "On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe". "I Don't Know What It Is" also mentions several geographic locations, including Calais, Dover, Poland, Limbo, and Lower Manhattan.

The flute arrangement in "Vicious World" is a reference to Richard Wagner's opera Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. "Movies of Myself" mentions a Saturday Evening Post edition by Jesus as well as "an old piece of bacon never eaten by Elvis", referring to a story that Wainwright heard about someone who purchased a framed piece of bacon on eBay that at one time belonged to musician Elvis Presley. "Go or Go Ahead" contains celestial and mythological references, from angels, stars, planets, and Mars to vampires and Medusa (along with the phrase "Look in her eyes"), a female chthonic monster that turns onlookers to stone.

"Vibrate" references pop star Britney Spears and fairy tale character Pinocchio, while "14th Street" refers to the nursery rhyme about Little Bo Peep. The latter also has the phrase "And there'll be rainbows", referring to Judy Garland's classic ballad "Over the Rainbow" from The Wizard of Oz. "Natasha" was written for and about Wainwright's friend, actress Natasha Lyonne, who has had public struggles with substance abuse and health problems.

The album's title track, "Want", alludes to Wainwright's parents Loudon Wainwright III and Kate McGarrigle, and mentions musicians John Lennon and Leonard Cohen as well as 3rd Rock from the Sun cast members John Lithgow and Jane Curtin. In "11:11", "Put away your posies, I'm gonna have a drink before we ring around the rosies" refers to the nursery rhyme "Ring Around the Rosie", which is commonly said to be about the black plague. The last verse, which mentions "something burning" in Manhattan, alludes to the September 11 attacks and the collapse of the World Trade Center towers. "Dinner at Eight" was written about a disagreement Wainwright and his father had at a photo shoot for Rolling Stone. The song contains an allusion to the Biblical story of David and Goliath with the phrase "I'm gonna take you down with one little stone".[23]

Professional ratings

Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	72/100[24]
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[1]
Entertainment Weekly	A−[25]
The Independent	[23]
Los Angeles Times	[26]
Mojo	[27]
NME	7/10[28]
Pitchfork	6.9/10[19]
Q	[29]
Rolling Stone	[30]
Spin	C−[31]

Overall, reception of the album was positive. AllMusic's Zac Johnson described the album as "another set of obscenely lush and opulent pop operettas... meticulously layered and richly textured, with full orchestral passages and many-throated harmonies". After praising the album, Johnson concluded that Wainwright "could be singing lists of names out of the phone book and it would still be more exciting and inventive than 99 percent of the other albums out there".[1] Wainwright's style caused Sal Cinquemani of Slant to draw comparisons to a giant peacock's kaleidoscopic tail, and he insisted that producer Marius de Vries "[kept] the singer's opulent poperas and lush ballads in check while bringing them to a new level of lovely pageantry". Cinquemani also asserted that Want One had a "balanced mix of rollicking rock operas" and "quiet piano ballads".[15]

Entertainment Weekly's Marc Weingarten characterized the album as a "gorgeous meditation on emotional displacement", with "clever, gently ironic wordplay".[25] In his review for Rolling Stone, David Fricke called the album a record of "breathtaking, eccentric opulence" and a "loving nod to the vocal and poetic gifts he inherited from his parents", folk musicians Loudon Wainwright III and Kate McGarrigle. Fricke concluded: "With the sumptuous honesty of Want One, their son is now his own man".[30]

However, the album did receive some criticism, mostly pertaining to its lavish and decadent style. Blender's RJ Smith called Wainwright's "carnival-esque piano playing... so thick, the music all but drowns in pretty surfaces".[32] The Independent mostly complimented Want One, though its review revealed a preference for the simpler tracks like "Want" and "Dinner at Eight", "when it's just him and his piano". The review also criticized "Movies of Myself", describing the song as having "plaintive vocals [that] jar against stadium-rock guitars and dubious Eighties keyboards".[23] Contrastingly, Pitchfork's review singles out "Vibrate", "Natasha", "Pretty Things", and "Want" for being "simply too sparse to offer any real substance".[19]

"Dinner at Eight" in particular has received two other prominent raves. In 2010, while promoting the release of a live double album, David Bowie praised "Dinner at Eight" as "the best" father/son song he knew, calling Rufus "simply one of the great writers."[33] In 2011, in Planet Word, author and BBC producer John-Paul Davidson, in a discussion of poetry and song, called Dinner at Eight "no finer expression of an argument between a son and a father who abandoned him."[34]

The album was included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.[35]

All songs on the album written by Wainwright:

1. "Oh What a World" – 4:23
2. "I Don't Know What It Is" – 4:51
3. "Vicious World" – 2:50
4. "Movies of Myself" – 4:31
5. "Pretty Things" – 2:40
6. "Go or Go Ahead" – 6:39
7. "Vibrate" – 2:44
8. "14th Street" – 4:44
9. "Natasha" – 3:29
10. "Harvester of Hearts" – 3:35
11. "Beautiful Child" – 4:16
12. "Want" – 5:11
13. "11:11" – 4:27
14. "Dinner at Eight" – 4:33

Bonus tracks

15. "Es Muß Sein" (UK and Japan releases) – 2:19
16. "Velvet Curtain Rag" (UK release) – 4:31

Bonus disc

The Black Session, No. 199 is a limited edition bonus disc that was included with the first pressing of the French release of Want One. It was recorded live on October 9, 2003.

1. "Want" (live)
2. "Leaving For Paris" (live)
3. "Dinner at Eight" (live)
4. "Coeur de Parisienne" (live)

Want One debuted at No. 60 on the Billboard 200, Wainwright's highest position on the chart until the release of his fifth studio album, Release the Stars (2007).[3] The album reached peak positions of No. 130 in France and No. 77 in the Netherlands.[4][5] Want One won Wainwright the award for Outstanding Music Artist at the 15th GLAAD Media Awards, an awards ceremony created by the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation to recognize and honor the mainstream media for their fair representations of the gay community.[7] The album also won the award for Best New Recording and earned Wainwright a nomination for Best Songwriter at the OutMusic Awards.[8][9] Want One was nominated for the 2004 Shortlist Music Prize.[10]

In 2006, both Want One and Want Two were included in Robert Dimery's book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die,[36][37] and two years later Out ranked Poses No. 50 and Want One No. 80 on their "100 Greatest, Gayest Albums" list.[38][39] "Want" is featured in Toby Creswell's 2006 book, 1001 Songs: The Great Songs of All Time and the Artists, Stories and Secrets Behind Them.[40] The album was recognized as one of the "50 best albums of the decade" by Paste in 2009, appearing as No. 16 on the list.[41]

The following table displays some of the 2003 "End of Year" list placements by various publications.