Greetings From the Great Lake State: Birthplace of Sufjan Stevens' Personal Brand of Lush Sentimentalism
Modern folk’s greatest troubadour was not always on such sure footing. After a shaky debut and a bewildering experimental-electro follow-up, Sufjan Stevens doubled down betting on himself, and went on to create one of the early millennium’s first true sonic masterpieces.
Michigan
Sufjan Stevens
Chamber Folk | 2003
These days, Sufjan Stevens is essentially a household name. His mastery of orchestral and chamber folk performance and production, combined with his Pulitzer-worthy lyrics that paint brilliant scenes of “common” beauty and sadness, have made him the de facto king of twee-indie recording. But jokes (in good fun) about his penchant for banjos and whispered falsettos about various U.S. states do not do justice to his truly excellent songwriting informed equally by tragedy and childlike wonder.
Sufjan’s path to Michigan was not an assured one. His first album, 2000’s A Sun Came, showcased his interest in combining disparate versions of traditional folk music from around the world under the banner of a newer chamber pop aesthetic, but the showcase of his many influences made the end result jumbled and often difficult to follow. This album was the musical version of that kid in your AP English class that makes everyone late for lunch because he won’t stop asking the teacher unrelated questions to show how smart he is.
And if those tangents weren’t eclectic enough for you, his second album, Enjoy Your Rabbit, was a complete rejection of those principles, replaced with wordless glitch electronics. The album was an experimental, conceptual song cycle inspired by the Chinese zodiac. And though Sufjan would state his intention as encouraging listeners to “imagine what you like,” the project would prove much too dense for the average listener, especially considering the sonic whiplash from his debut.
For his third album, Sufjan would attempt to use his reoccurring themes of religion (especially Christian mysticism) and longing for catharsis to pen a deeply affecting love letter to his home state. Filled with fragile moments of nostalgia and heartbreaking historical references to the class and economic disintegration that mirrored the disintegration of his own family, Stevens honed and condensed his outside influences and musical palette to form what would become one of the greatest monuments to innocence lost—and hope regained—ever constructed.
Flint (For the Unemployed and Underpaid)
Sufjan’s survey of his home state begins with the bold choice of an elegy. The instrumentation is spare, a single piano, sometimes accompanied by soft, distant horns during segues, playing a slow, simple progression that follows the vocals. Here, Sufjan sings from the point-of-view of a recently laid-off factory worker, delivering some of Michigan’s most depressing—and poignant—lines: “It’s the same outside / Driving to the riverside / I pretend to cry / Even if I cry alone.” The worker, like Flint itself, has sunk into a depression from which neither he, nor it, will ever fully recover.
All Good Naysayers, Speak Up! Or Forever Hold Your Peace!
The second track, compared to the opener, explodes with color and expansive instrumentation. Carried by a very jazzy 5/4 piano-and-drum beat, the music is full to the brim with baroque chamber ensemble instruments that would become Sufjan’s signature: banjo (of course), double-reed woodwinds (e.g., oboe and English horn), and a myriad of mallet percussives (vibraphone, xylophone, and glockenspiel). Sufjan’s lyrics follow another of his signatures: a sort of freeform word association loosely related by a central theme. The theme here being the usurping of the democratic process by capital and how those who were mostly responsible for Michigan’s financial downfall exploited that process to drown any criticism in a sea of conflicting voices, beautifully symbolized by Sufjan’s backing vocalists singing literal praises to commerce overtop of his more social-oriented slogans.
For the Widows in Paradise, for the Fatherless in Ypsilanti
The banjo is front and center here, though it serves as an incredibly interesting “low brow” counterpoint to the “high brow” full orchestral horn sections during the chorus. It also serves as a brilliant conveyance for Sufjan’s more grounded story about growing up with a single parent in an out-of-the-way place. His lyrics use an insane amount of double-speak that prove his poetic chops: his choice of location is Paradise, Michigan, so it can also be Paradise, the afterlife; his use of the word “morning,” which could easily be substituted for “mourning;” and his constant use of the father/son dynamic both to illustrate the loss of a father as a child, and to allude to the immaculate conception of Jesus.
Say Yes! to M!ch!gan!
On one of the simpler songs on the album, Sufjan uses allusions to various Michigan tourism slogans to reminisce about his childhood. The images he shares, as well as his longing to return—both physically and emotionally—create a scene that is both heartwarming and full of longing. The instrumentation in the verses consists of a very warmly recorded piano and a few Vince Guaraldi-esque horns, while the choruses become lush with tons of bells and chimes, combined with what sounds like a full choir of people singing along, as if heralding his entry into Heaven. His lyrics in those choruses are particularly misty-eyed, especially for anyone who has moved far from home: “Still I never meant to go away / I was raised, I was raised / In the place, in the place / Still I often think of going back / To the farms, to the farms / Golden arms, golden arms.”
The Upper Peninsula
“The Upper Peninsula” takes the form of an early country ballad, with Sufjan inhabiting the character of a conservative, rural U.P. citizen who must come to terms with his changing life and a changing America. He often mentions “strange ideas,” first from his wife, who has left him, but given the small-town, hyper-isolated nature of U.P., still sees her everywhere: “I've seen my wife / At the K-Mart / In strange ideas / We live apart.” He also sees these “strange ideas” in his child who has also left the man behind, either because of a more liberal worldview, or (as is the case with much of Sufjan’s allegory) because they are LGBTQ and no longer felt comfortable in an overly conservative small town: “I drove all night / To find my child / In strange ideas / He's been reviled.” The breaks after choruses are filled with an eerie, electric organ melody that really highlights the alienation this character feels in the “strange” new world of 2000’s America.
Tahquamenon Falls
“Tahquamenon Falls” is one of several instrumental tracks on the album, used effectively to provide a sort of soundscape for the areas and events Sufjan wants to remember. The set of waterfalls on the Tahquamenon River, shortly before it empties into Lake Superior, for which the track is named, is represented beautifully by a delightful arrangement of chimes, bells, xylophones, and glockenspiels, perfectly evoking the image of delicately falling water.
Holland
In a beautifully simple composition, Sufjan reminisces about a summer fling over a delicate piano and lightly strummed guitar. The combination is a wonderful example of how effective his storytelling can be when evoking shared emotion through his signature word association and his brilliant choices of instrumentation. “Fall in love and fall apart,” he sings, almost whispering, “things will end before they start,” leaving us wondering if this is regret or a pleasant reverie. “Lose ourselves to lose our minds / In the summer heat, I might.” He then wordlessly hums in a round as woodwinds come in to carry his soft memory away on a summer breeze.
Detroit, Lift Up Your Weary Head! (Rebuild! Restore! Reconsider!)
“Detroit…” is the first time we see Sufjan in what would become another signature: the massive, all-or-nothing showstopper. Using nearly every instrument at his disposal, including a bevy of background vocalists, Stevens builds up the entire world of real-life Detroit, complete with all its past hopes, present-day failings, and future possibilities. The simple opening glockenspiel melody gives way to a full chamber folk orchestra of pianos, guitars, banjos, a full suite of woodwinds both reeded (oboe, English horn) and not (recorder, flute, and whistle), and every percussion instrument available to the elementary school music class: various -phones, a full drum set, sleigh bells, tambourines, full-size cymbals, and timpani.
Lyrically, the song describes Detroit’s fall from Paris of the Midwest during the height of the automobile age to impoverished ghost city. “Once a great place / Now a prison,” Sufjan begins, marking the economic collapse of his home city, the decay of its infrastructure, its loss of basic services, and marked decline in population (from nearly 2 million in 1950, to well under 1 million today). His transition to the chorus after the first verse is absolutely brilliant: “All I can say / All I can do” is a line that’s repeated throughout the verses, but here he transitions that last part with “all I can do, do, do, do, do, do, do,” changing the words to a simple vocal backing rhythm for the chorus.
As someone who lives in another of America’s declining (formerly) industrial towns, the chorus, at least to me, is deeply moving: “From the trembling walls, it’s a great idea! / Everything you want, it’s a great idea!” The ways to read this are numerous. It’s a commentary on the city’s decline as well as on it’s future promise, on what is was vs. what it is now vs. what it can be. “It’s a great idea,” could be discussing just how shortsighted some projects were (such as the “People Mover” mentioned by name in the song), or how the new ground of the city is ripe for reinvention. Anything you want? That’s a great idea!
I could go on and on about “Detroit…,” how it reminds me so much of my beloved Baltimore in a terrible sister city way, how its mix of colorful descriptions is both depressing and inspirational, and how that language is perfectly mirrored by Sufjan’s utterly ingenious, endlessly fascinating score. And I haven’t even gotten to the delightful word salad portion of the song where backing vocalists sing out random things about Detroit: “Henry Ford!,” “Pontiac!,” “Tigers game!,” “Gun control!,” “Wolverine!” It’s all just so marvelous, and was the first showcase of what Stevens was truly capable of as a songwriter. It’s an absolutely masterful 8-minute symphony that I will never get tired of listening to.
Romulus
In another creative use of Michigan place names (they’re quite prevalent, if you haven’t figured that out yet), Stevens uses the Detroit suburb of Romulus to symbolize his own childhood abandonment, like Romulus and Remus being abandoned to the she-wolf before founding Rome. “Romulus” is another simple melody, this time highlighting the banjo backed by a soft piano, but the story he uses it to tell is quite heartbreaking. “When she had her last child / Once when she had some boyfriends / She moved away quite far / Our grandpa bought us a new VCR,” Sufjan recalls his mother leaving him and his siblings with their grandfather as she went and pursued a new life without them. Even more devastating is the verse where they innocently hope her disused car will keep her from leaving again: “Once when we moved away / She came to Romulus for a day / Her Chevrolet broke down / We prayed it'd never be fixed or be found.” In the end, he grows to resent her, as is so tragically often the case: “I was ashamed, I was ashamed of her,” he sings, when his mother refuses to attend his grandfather’s (presumably her father’s) funeral. Growing up is the unkindest cut of all.
Alanson, Crooked River
“Alanson, Crooked River” is another bell-based instrumental piece, again perfectly reflecting the waters of the Crooked River passing the town of Alanson, Michigan. It’s extraordinarily pleasant, given the previous song’s sadness, and at barely over 1-minute long, it’s a wonderful, nature-filled detour. An electric organ drone builds toward the end, blending into…
Sleeping Bear, Sault Saint Marie
I can’t quite explain why, but “Sleeping Bear…” is one of my absolute favorite Sufjan Stevens songs. It begins with the drone started in the previous track, and then brings in much of the chamber orchestra from “Detroit…” The vocals are done in full chorale with his background singers on equal mix, giving it the feel of a contemporary church service. And considering the overt religious themes of the song, that is the absolutely correct decision. Here, Sufjan’s storytelling is incredibly concise and still so picturesque. The final verse, with only 13 words, describes the geography’s historical importance, and danger: “Oh, Saint Marie / Give up the rocking boats drowned / The captain is done.” With just 12 lines and under three minutes, Sufjan condenses an entire region of the Great Lakes into a song about mortality and vulnerability while highlighting the area’s natural beauty.
They Also Mourn Who Do Not Wear Black (For the Homeless in Muskegon)
A delightful array of xylophones open another 5/4 track before a fun set of electric pianos come in to back one of Sufjan’s most allegorical and symbolist songs. The meandering of his lyrics is supported by the constant uplift of the music, soon joined by his now-usual woodwinds, and a full chorus of backing vocalists singing overlapping, contrasting lines like a Sondheim musical. Yet there is something compelling about his musings, as dense as they may seem. Lines like “If you happen to be educated / Time it marches on / Oh time it marches on,” and “Mourning steps and / Mourning gallivants / And mourning never shows / No mourning never slows,” are so effective in their prescience that you can’t help but try to hear more. “Save yourself from recognition / Selflessness and quiet song / To better get along.”
Oh God, Where Are You Now? (In Pickeral Lake? Pigeon? Marquette? Mackinaw?)
Oh boy, this is the big one. At over nine minutes, “Oh God, Where Are You Now?” is Michigan’s longest and most introspective song. Much of it is scored by a single piano and the faint backing of guitars and banjo. But most of the sound is the vocals, done again in choral style like “Sleeping Bear…” And those lyrics showcase Sufjan’s (at the time) religious devotion clashing with his overwhelming feeling of helplessness in an otherwise uncaring climate: “Oh God, where are you now? / Oh Lord, say somehow / The devil is hard on my face again / The world is a hundred to one again.”
Throughout the main section of the track, you can hear Sufjan painfully grappling with his childhood understanding of God when faced with the tragedy of his upbringing and the complex and horrifying world of adulthood. Are You there? Were You ever there? Why hath Thou forsaken me, one of Your children? Everything we’ve ever been taught was that You are good, but what is good in the face of such reckless hate?
The piece ends with a near-ambient suite for horns, which is, for me, somehow even more emotionally devastating than the main portion of the song. A gorgeous, lush arrangement fills all the listenable space, like a classical entrance of angels. They play and play, until you are filled by their light and warmth, then, one by one, hold until only a single trumpet remains, its clarion call sounding into the cold void, until you are left alone, breathless.
Tears. Every time, there are tears.
Redford (For Yia-Yia & Pappou)
Weirdly, this instrumental track is probably the most globally well-known Sufjan Stevens piece. Its deep, immense, reverberating grand piano chords have been used in everything from art-film soundtracks to Red Bull commercials. It’s amazing how that one repeating musical phrase can inspire such awe and wonderment. It’s truly an unbelievable accomplishment to say so much with no words at all.
Vito’s Ordination Song
A warm electric organ hum pulls us back from the dark, uncaring ruminations of the previous songs to give us a heartwarming, reassuring response to the doubt and grief of songs like “Romulus” and especially “Oh God, Where Are You Now?” It is the most overtly religious subject matter on the album, but it creates the perfect parallel between the love of God that a (good) religious leader imparts to their congregation with the love that can be found in the world around us.
Lines like “I always knew you / In your mother’s arms / I have called your name” could easily be the calling of a priest to their vocation, or the lines Sufjan wishes he could have heard from his father. More pointedly, there’s “I’ve made a crown for you,” explicitly refencing 1st Peter 5:2-4, which states that anyone “feed[ing] the flock of God…ye shall receive a crown of glory.” The lines leading into the chorus are clearly the most personal to Stevens, and therefore the most emotionally affecting: “I’ve made amends between Father and Son / Or if you haven’t one, rest in my arms.” It returns to the album’s themes of family, religion, and loss, and serves as a reminder that comfort can be found in others regardless of our circumstances or our past.
When Michigan was released in July of 2003, America was in a dark place: 9/11 and the War on Terror had led to the invasion of Afghanistan and, incredibly recently at that time, Iraq. Certainly, there were plenty of punk and rock albums to immediately jump on the protest bandwagon, but many of those almost exclusively discuss the policy makers (Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, etc.) and leave the people…unmentioned. As did all of the “Freedom Isn’t Free” crowd of country and classic rock-revival albums that came in a tidal wave immediately following 9/11, which were almost certainly released more as a disgusting way to commercialize tragedy than they were to heal the nation. Michigan was the first album to take a raw, unflinching look at people in deteriorating circumstances as they are, not in a haloed shroud of bad-faith ‘Merica patriotism, or as set-dressing in the war on capitalism. These are people that Sufjan Stevens knew. A person that Sufjan Stevens was.
Stevens used his past experience, as difficult as it was to relive, to draw an accurate portrait of his home state. There is beauty there, in Michigan, in its falls and lakes and natural wonders, but also ugliness, in its dilapidated cities and neglected citizens, long forgotten by the rest of the country. He also, through his focused effort to capture the nostalgic feelings of Americana-past, proved that he didn’t need all the fluff of that debut album’s plethora of instruments. BUT when he wanted to, and when it was dictated by the emotion of the song, boy could he bring the fullness of his orchestral powers to bear.
The toasty-warm sounds of Sufjan’s arrangements often cover his more melancholic tales, but it also makes them impossibly intimate. His endlessly curious observations, now with the hindsight of his full discography, clearly showcase his desire, nay, his physical necessity to escape into memory. Haven’t we all been there? Michigan makes us want to see our own childhoods how Sufjan Stevens does his, not as a rose-tinted, glass-encased curio, but as a connection to where we came from and oh, the places we’ll go.
