I Cried for Us
Writers - Kate McGarrigle
First released - 2010
Original album - Yes 2017 reissue Further Listening 2008-2010 bonus disc
Producer - Pet Shop Boys
Subsequent albums - (none)
Other releases - bonus track with the single "Together"
On June 12, 2010, Neil was among the artists who performed at a London concert paying tribute to the late Canadian singer-songwriter Kate McGarrigle, who had succumbed to cancer the preceding January and who also happened to be the mother of his friend Rufus Wainwright. (Kate and Neil had met several years before backstage at one of Rufus's concerts.) Neil sang "I Cried for Us," written by McGarrigle and originally released in 1982 on the album Love Over and Over by Kate and her sister Anna. It was previously (and more famously) covered by Linda Ronstadt, Dolly Parton, and Emmylou Harris on their highly successful 1987 album Trio, where it was inexplicably retitled "I've Had Enough."
This sad, beautiful ballad was picked (with its original title) by Neil himself from the McGarrigle catalogue. In it, the narrator bids farewell to her lover—or, more accurately, her husband, seeing as how it was directly inspired by the breakup of McGarrigle's marriage with Rufus's father, fellow singer/songwriter Loudon Wainwright III—in a note pinned to his coat. As she assures him, "I cried for us." In other words, she grieves for them both individually and together, for their lost love for each other.
The Telegraph of London described Neil's performance as "a tender, fragile rendition" of the song. A low-quality bootleg video recording from the show has turned up on YouTube and elsewhere. But it didn't take long for an official PSB recording of "I Cried for Us" to emerge. About a week before the show, Neil and Chris spent a couple days in the studio working on a demo so that the tribute concert's musical director would have an arrangement to work with. The Boys liked it so much that they decided to finish and release their studio version as a bonus track with the single "Together" in late November 2010.
List cross-references
- PSB "cover songs" and who first recorded them
- What it's about: Neil's succinct statements on what a song is "about"
- Tracks for a prospective third PSB b-sides album
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