College/Art Rock: Sufjan Stevens' Illinoise

Much ink has been spilled of late about Sufjan Stevens with many reviews touching only the surfaces—he writes about states; will he really be able to do all 50?; there’s something about God here; the comics sued to get Superman off the album cover. However, listen to the lyrics sung in Stevens’ tender voice, and those surfaces lie far above the meanings of the songs which dive like how Chicago’s Red Line El dives below the Loop, an Elevated train that is now a subway but is still called the El.

Illinois is filled with familiar touchpoints evoking the state: people, places, and events. From the Cubs to Casimir Pulaski Day, from the Columbian Exposition to Andrew Jackson, from Jane Addams to the Cubs curse of the goat, there’s plenty of times when your ears are pricked with the mention of the collected history items of Illinois. However, in the Sufjan Stevens Historical Society, these songs are never simply historical markers along the road to Peoria. They are soul-searching stories about his stepmom, father, his girlfried who died of cancer, and his move to New York. They are true poetry where the words invoke stories and emotions but are never plainly told. You know what Stevens means even if you can’t put your finger on a point on the map.

This is a difference between Illinois and Stevens’ first state project, Michigan. Illinois tells those core stories within the historical record, sending you to search the history books to further understand the metaphor. It would seem obvious that Stevens’ state albums would invoke the sense of place, but actually while Michigan did focus on place, Illinois spends more time on people. Michigan’s stories are about Flint, Detroit, Holland, and the Upper Peninsula, places that define (or are defined by) the troubles everyday people experience. Illinois, on the other hand, sings of the people who have come to define the places, their stories avenues to the everyday people who live down the street just out of the limelight.

On “Say Yes! to Michigan,” Stevens sings, “Still I never meant to go away/I was raised in the place.” Going away from Michigan brings reminiscences of the place. With “Chicago,” it’s another song of going away, but in the process gaining “freedom myself and from the land.” Driving to Chicago and then driving to New York, it’s less about place and more about the person he’s becoming. The spiritual growth parallel happens on the chorus, “You came to take us./All things go. All things go./To re-create us.” Christ coming to take us away from our mistakes and make us into His new creations.

Whereas “Oh Detroit, Lift Up Your Weary Head (Restore! Rebuild! Reconsider!)” is about the white flight and the plight of the blight of Detroit, “Decatur, or, Round of Applause for Your Step Mother” isn’t really about Decatur. Decatur is where Stevens’ stepmother showed him a zoo and the Civil War history, but it is Decatur that shows Stevens’ how poorly they treated their stepmother. Asking “why did we hate her,” Decatur stands in the place of God, “the great I am,” confronting him with his sin and causing him to now end the song in a rousing round of applause for his stepmother. The place is about the people is about the God who moves His people to become His people again.

Much has been made about Illinois’ “John Wayne Gacy, Jr.,” which has been accused of being a defense of Gacy, explaining that his serial killing had to do with his childhood. A compassionate song about a serial killer has made many uncomfortable, but this ain’t no Helter Skelter to be adopted by another sick clown to celebrate his own graving devices. What makes it most uncomfortable actually is the last line which indemnifies us all, secrets hid “beneath the floorboards,” “I am really just like him.” Before our God, we don’t want Him to hold us more accountable for our sins than another person; forgiveness offered to all. Although we struggle to say this when it comes to “some sick bastard” who should be locked up forever. Stevens makes us start to object, because his song makes us remember that we cannot brag that somehow we’re better than someone else in God’s eyes.

Those kind of movements of lyric can only be contained within some highly fluid musical inventions. Not taking anything away from Stevens’ incredible contributors, when the liner notes say, “All arrangements (painstakingly composed) by Sufjan Stevens,” it’s no false front. Listen to how a song like “Jacksonville” can grow out of Stevens’ plucked banjo line into a chorale groove with horns, strings, and percussion layering an orchestral folk. We rarely pay attention to music of such density, but now with everyone ready to collect Stevens’ state albums like their state quarters, one would think that the governors would be calling. However, just remember: this isn’t a travel brochure. Oh, you’ll travel, travel through places and stories, but you’re bound to end up where you started—within your own soul.

Thanks to Sufjan Stevens, Ashmatic Kitty Records, and Fanatic Promotion for the review
copies.