Want Two

Want Two is the second half of the project that began with Want One. Wainwright called it the darker sibling, concerned with the world we live in after the intensely personal Want One. Marius de Vries and Wainwright produced it. Four of the songs came out first as the iTunes EP Waiting for a Want, and the single The One You Love followed in February 2005.

It opens with a setting of the Agnus Dei with Van Dyke Parks among the orchestral arrangers, and it ends with the nine-minute Old Whore's Diet, sung with Anohni. Hometown Waltz features banjo, accordion and recorder from Kate McGarrigle, Anna McGarrigle and Lily Lanken. The Art Teacher was taken from a live recording, and the UK edition adds live tracks. A bonus DVD, Live at the Fillmore, came with the album.

It reached 103 on the Billboard 200 and 21 on the UK Albums Chart. Alexis Petridis gave it four stars in the Guardian and called it stunning, picking out The Art Teacher and Gay Messiah. Pitchfork scored it 6 and found it a darker, more meditative sequel, singling out The One You Love as the track that set the album right. At the 2023 Proms, Dorian Lynskey of the Guardian found the Want Two half patchier than the first, though he praised The Art Teacher as just Wainwright, a piano and a perfect song.