Song · Rufus Wainwright
“I Don't Know What It Is” by Rufus Wainwright
From the album Want One (2003)
“I Don't Know What It Is” by Rufus Wainwright appears on 2 radio countdowns from 2 stations between 2009 and 2013. It was first released in 2003 on the album Want One. Its best result is #424 on the WXPN 885 Greatest Songs of the New Millennium (2013).
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Rufus Wainwright's third album, Want One, came out in 2003, and "I Don't Know What It Is" followed as a single in 2004, a baroque-pop epic that producer Marius de Vries later counted among the toughest jobs of his career. No wonder: hundreds of layers of orchestra, choir and voice are stacked in, and the credits run from Wainwright's own piano to harp, flute, oboe, clarinet and bassoon, trumpets from Roddy Lorimer and Paul Spong, Annie Whitehead's trombone, the Kick Horns and three guitarists, Charlie Sexton among them.
It's a travelling song with no destination, Wainwright rattling along on a train and drifting across a map that takes in Calais, Dover, Poland and Lower Manhattan before veering off to Heaven, Hell and Limbo. Grand, restless and a little lost, it's pop with a conservatory education.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
RockLists rankings
Indie & Adult Alternative
All Rock Formats
All-time and decade countdowns
| Year | # | Station | Countdown | of |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2009 | 436 | WYEP | WYEP 913 Songs That Matter from the Last Decade | 913 |
| 2013 | 424 | WXPN | WXPN 885 Greatest Songs of the New Millennium (2013) | 885 |
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