Rufus Wainwright / Meet the Robinsons (Soundtrack from the Motion Picture) / 2007
Another Believer
bright, insistent, optimistic with a current of anxious urgency
A buoyant, almost jingle-like pop song built around the simple hook of winning someone's trust back through persistence rather than argument. Written for an animated family film, it trades Wainwright's usual baroque density for plainspoken repetition and an upbeat, inclusive address that could be romantic, platonic, or aimed at an audience of children learning to have faith in something new.
persuasion and persistence faith versus skepticism time and hesitation reassurance renewal
Who's speaking
A first-person speaker addresses a 'you' directly, trying to convince them of something unspecified -- the tone suggests sincerity but the speaker also admits to seeming like a trickster, which complicates how reliable or self-aware the voice is
What happens
The song opens with a direct appeal for attention and patience, moves through a middle section where the speaker acknowledges doubt and wasted time, and closes by looping back to the same opening gesture, suggesting the persuasion is ongoing rather than resolved -- the 'telling' and 'showing' never actually arrive in concrete terms.
How it's built
Simple verse-chorus pop structure with a nonsense 'do-do-do' vocal break standing in for a bridge or instrumental hook. The song relies heavily on repetition and recursion -- verses echo each other almost verbatim, and the ending dissolves the verses and chorus into fragments, looping phrases rather than resolving them.
Section by section
Opening verse
“I got something to tell you”
The song begins mid-conversation, with a greeting that promises disclosure but withholds it. This sets up the song's central device: perpetual anticipation rather than delivery of actual content.
First chorus
“one more chance, one more glance”
The plea narrows from grand promises to small, almost childlike requests -- a chance, a glance, a hand to hold -- which domesticates the song's stakes and makes the persuasion feel gentle rather than manipulative.
Pre-chorus/bridge-like section
Here the speaker turns reflective, confessing that time has been wasted and that his sincerity might be in question. This is the song's emotional pivot, however brief, injecting doubt into what had been a confident pitch.
Do-do-do break
The wordless vocal hook functions as a melodic hinge, giving the song a nursery-rhyme simplicity that suits its soundtrack context and lets the melody itself carry emotional weight without lyrical content.
Closing fragments
The final lines dissolve into recombined scraps of earlier verses, as if the speaker is stuck repeating his pitch rather than advancing it. The song ends without resolution, reinforcing that persuasion here is a state, not an event.
Craft
- anaphora
- Repeated openings like the greeting-and-promise formula at the start of each verse create a ritualistic, almost incantatory feel, reinforcing the idea of someone trying again and again to be believed.
- vocables
- The wordless 'do-do-do' section functions as a release valve from the song's insistent address, giving the listener (and perhaps the speaker) a breather from direct appeal.
- self-aware irony
- The speaker's admission that he might seem to be fooling the listener undercuts his own sincerity, turning a simple persuasion song into something slightly unstable or self-conscious about its own performance.
- fragmentation at the close
- The final section breaks the verses into disjointed phrases and reorders them, mimicking a mind circling the same plea without reaching conclusion.
Reading it
On its surface this is a simple, winsome song about winning someone over -- fitting for its use in a family animated film about believing in oneself and one's ideas despite doubt. Read that way, the 'you' could be a stand-in for the audience or for the protagonist's own self-doubt, and the 'believer' of the title is anyone convinced to trust an uncertain future. A second, more adult reading treats it as a romantic overture from someone aware he's unreliable -- the repeated admission of seeming to fool the listener suggests a charming but slightly untrustworthy suitor, which would align with Wainwright's broader catalog of knowingly theatrical, self-implicating love songs. Both readings coexist comfortably given the song's deliberate vagueness about what exactly is being told or shown.
Context
The song appears on the soundtrack to the 2007 Disney animated film Meet the Robinsons, which centers on themes of optimism, invention, and believing in the future despite setbacks. This context strongly shapes the song's tone: it's built for broad, family-friendly uplift rather than the ornate chamber-pop arrangements typical of Wainwright's own albums. I don't have reliable details on the specific recording session or chart performance, so I'm working primarily from the text and its placement in the film.
Listen for
- the way the opening greeting recurs with slight variations each time, tightening the sense of repetition
- the shift in tone when the speaker admits to wasting time or seeming insincere
- the wordless vocal hook as a structural pivot rather than filler
- how the ending breaks the verses into fragments instead of resolving them
- the contrast between the song's bouncy, bright arrangement and its slightly anxious lyrical undercurrent
About Rufus Wainwright
Rufus McGarrigle Wainwright is a Canadian and American singer, songwriter, and composer. He has recorded eleven studio albums and numerous tracks on compilations and film soundtracks.
b. 1973 / Montréal
Full biography and catalogue