tracks by Wainwright. Rufus Wainwright was released on May 19, 1998, through DreamWorks. Following the album's release, which earned him mostly positive reviews, Wainwright contributed to The McGarrigle Hour, a 1998 album by Kate & Anna McGarrigle featuring family members Loudon and Martha along with singers Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt. In December 1998, Wainwright appeared in a Gap television advertisement in which he performed Frank Loesser's 1947 song "What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?" In 1999, he was one of several featured artists promoted by Best Buy as part of a campaign to promote young talent. The album was re-issued in 2008 in LP form through the record label Plain Recordings. Songs The "neo-operatic" opening track "Foolish Love", arranged by Van Dyke Parks, was described by AllMusic contributor Matthew Greenwald as a "lush, orchestral-soaked ballad, with incredible strings". He asserted that Wainwright's lyrics took the form of a letter to himself, defining his goals and "sense of purpose". The song "Danny Boy", with its "fabulous wordplay that stays literate and easy to understand at the time", contains "subtle" horn lines and sampled percussion. The song alludes to Wainwright's homosexuality, which Greenwald considered a "brave move". According to biographer Kirk Lake, "Danny Boy" is a companion piece to "Foolish Love" and together they represent the start and end of a relationship between a gay and a straight man. Danny, the straight "drug-addled" title figure with whom Wainwright had a three-year relationship, is the subject of both songs in addition to others on the album; he appears in the album's collage artwork. Wainwright sings of being so blinded by love that he fails to notice the "ship with eight sails" threatening to come around the bend, a reference to Bertolt Brecht's 1928 musical The Threepenny Opera. The chorus in "April Fools" begins with an "unusually upbeat attitude" and was considered by Greenwald to be the most accessible track on the album. The song showcases Jim Keltner's drum performance as well as Wainwright's piano playing. Driven by Wainwright's guitar playing, "In My Arms" was described by Greenwald as a "forlorn", Spanish-influenced ballad that sounded as though it "could have been recorded in France in the 1920s". The song "Millbrook" is an ode to his boarding school compatriots. Wainwright has admitted to being "upset and drunk" when recording the final take. "Baby", which has been considered one of the most melancholic songs