Why be in music, why write songs, if you can't use them to explore life or an idealized vision of life? I believe a lot of our lives are spent asleep, and what I've been trying to do is hold on to those moments when a little spark cuts through the fog and nudges you.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of music and songwriting as a means to explore and awaken life experiences.
Rufus Wainwright reflects on the purpose of music and songwriting, asserting that their value lies in the ability to help us navigate and understand both real and idealized aspects of life. He suggests that many people live in a state of unawareness, but through music, one can capture fleeting moments of clarity and inspiration that break through the confusion of daily existence.
In practice
This quote can be used as part of a speech about the transformative power of art.
The world has never before had as much drama as today. Radio, films, television and video inundate us with drama. But while these forms can engage or even enrage the audience, in none of them can the viewer’s response alter the artistic event itselfThat is why theatre is signing its own death warrant when it tries to play too safe. On the other hand, that is also the reason why, although its future often seems bleak, theatre will continue to live and to provoke.
No dancer can watch Fred Astaire and not know that we all should have been in another business.
I've always felt that complement of opposites: body and soul, solitude and companionship, and in the dance studio, contraction and release, rise and fall.
Those moments before a poem comes, when the heightened awareness comes over you, and you realize a poem is buried there somewhere, you prepare yourself. I run around, you know, kind of skipping around the house, marvelous elation. It’s as though I could fly.
You can't expect someone born into a family with no music...to understand when I'm conducting the Schönberg Variations.
I think that the job of poetry, its political job, is to refresh the idea of justice, which is going dead in us all the time.
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