Raise the Rufus

To learn how to master this balancing act, Wainwright need only look to his parents. Neither his father nor his mother has achieved massive success, but they've spent their entire adult lives as performers and are still getting work in youth-oriented mediums: Kate, along with Anna, provided vocals for the latest Nick Cave album, No More Shall We Part, and Loudon is a regular cast member on the Fox TV series Undeclared. "They've had the perfect careers, in my opinion," Rufus allows. "They've raised kids and had nice homes and been able to make the kind of records they wanted to make and have the kind of schedule they desire. To me, that's just as good as being Prince or John Lennon. If I could have a career like that, I'd be lucky. I'd feel blessed."

Meanwhile, he plans to go his own way, promoting a romantic worldview in an unromantic time. "I think once the stakes are raised around us, the way they are now, those little crushes and those little sort of notions we all have become very valuable -- and probably more intense -- due to the situations they happen in," he says.

Strike a pose: Songwriter Rufus Wainwright's smartly emotional music is in vogue.

Details

6:30 p.m. Monday, November 5, sold out, 303-534-8336

Paramount Theatre, 1631 Glenarm Place

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He's right, of course -- and such ingredients have combined during previous times of turmoil to produce some of America's most enduring cultural touchstones. For instance, the relationship between Rick and Ilsa in 1942's Casablanca throws the sparks it does in part because their situation is literally a matter of life and death, as those who saw the film in the midst of World War II understood full well. Wainwright doesn't know if equally memorable works will emerge from the war on terrorism, but he'll be taking his best shot.

"If anything, my goal is to make music, mainstream music, that brings things back to a search for beauty or, in a weird way, the divine," he says. "That's something I could be doing alone in my room until the cows come home. But instead of it just being my own little thing, I think it's important for me and other artists to get out there and really try to make this a better world."

The teenage girls of America should be eternally grateful.