In the morning, photos of the night's performance would be all over celebrity blogs. Drew Barrymore, Scarlett Johansson, Lucy Liu, Susan Sarandon, and Lou Reed would all adorn the audience in hi-res photographs documenting Rufus Wainwright's private, sort of secret show at The Rose Bar, an opulent lounge in the Gramercy Park Hotel. The glamourous crowd and equally glamourous venue provided a buzz-worthy background for Wainwright to debut his new album "All Days Are Nights: Songs For Lulu." It was just him and an opal-black Steinway piano and he gave a transfixing performance, interacting with the audience as if they were guests in his home. Before the show, though, his eyes seemed to be fixed on something far off in the distance.

Wainwright's mother, Kate McGarrigle, died in January after a long battle with cancer and Wainwright has clearly channeled his emotions into his new album. "Because he has had more than three years to contemplate the passing of his mother," Tim Adams of The Observer noted recently, "Wainwright has already had the chance to unpack some of his grief in music, and few songwriters are better equipped to find those extremes--from mournful melody to show-must-go-on production number." On the day of his Rose Bar performance, Wainwright displayed a notable "show-must-go-on" demeanor as he prepared for the evening while simultaneously preparing for the start of an international tour, the launch of a new website, the debut of his first opera, and a dizzying round of media interviews.

This episode of Site & Sound features Wainwright performing "When Most I Wink," one of three songs based on Shakespeare sonnets that appear on "All Days are Nights: Songs for Lulu" (Decca Records). The song, like much of the album, is both mournful and hopeful. Based on Sonnet 43, it includes the memorable couplet "All days are nights to see till I see thee/ And nights bright days when dreams do show thee me."