Early Morning Madness

Album: Unfollow The Rules (2020)
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Songfacts®:

  • Rufus Wainwright struggled with drug addiction in the early 2000s. His habit reached its peak in 2002, during which he went temporarily blind after a five-day bender on crystal meth, Special K and ecstasy. It was Wainwright's friend, Elton John, who saved him by sending him to rehab.

    Wainwright wrote this song about the darkness of addiction during a period in the mid-2010s when he was drinking too much.

    "I am now on the straight and narrow," he told The Sun. "But it was about being very hungover. Now, in my early middle-age, I have those moments where you get up at 5 a.m. and everything seems so mad and there is this real frightening situation. These anxiety moments are really profound, and I think are just going to have to be part of my life forever. You have to accept it. But what is lovely about it is that then you appreciate it when it's not happening."
  • This isn't the first song Wainwright wrote about a hangover: his 2001 song "Cigarettes And Chocolate Milk" he wrote while recovering from a night out in New York City.

Comments: 1

  • Mark from Newcastle, UkLyric - it’s not, “I’m a perfect man” it’s “I’m a perfect mess” (rhymes with rest and makes sense)
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