Chicago, Sufjan Stevens

February 3, 2007

Sufjan Stevens is the artist who has made me mostly forget about Beck. I like the generic complexity in Beck's albums.. but I can be annoyed at his self-consciously hip poses: "Tonight we're gonna party like it's 1985". Sufjan maxes out on quirkiness.. but does so with obvious goodwill and openheartedness.. and none of the hipster pose. There is also the added benefit that Sufjan has a gift for lyrics and memorable melodies.

A song that showcases his musical talent is the song "Chicago" which was first released on Illinois, but then took on a new centrality with its three appearances on Avalanche, an album composed of outtakes from Illinois. It is a song that makes me think of my trip across the country with Mike when I was seventeen or eighteen. Sufjan is describing a different trip.. but something like our spirit pervades his song.

I fell in love again
(All things go. All things go.)
Drove to Chicago
(All things know. All things know.)
We sold our clothes to the state.
(I don't mind. I don't mind.)
I made a lot of mistakes
(In my mind. In my mind.)

The first line appears to set the motive for a trip to Chicago: "I fell in love again". Hearing the song for the first time one might think that he is referring to his love for a person. But in the next stanza the idea is clarified with a more reflective line: "I was in love with a place (In my mind. In my mind.)" So here at the outset we get an expression of place-love. It is an emotion which we might expect from an artist who has embarked (at least rhetorically) on the project of recording a topical album for all 50 states.

I am not sure what it means to sell your clothes to the state. I tried to look up the phrase online and got nothing useful. It could mean that Sufjan ended up selling some of his clothes to get by.. pointing to a trip that somehow went awry. This seems to be the admission that immediately follows: "I made a lot of mistakes.."

And I drove to New York
In a van with my friend.
We slept in parking lots.
(I don't mind. I don't mind.)
I was in love with a place.
(In my mind. In my mind.)
I made a lot of mistakes
(In my mind. In my mind.)

Here I have a hard time commenting on Sufjan's lines, as I get caught up in my own memories. New York was the goal of our trip across the country, only we did not travel by van, but by Greyhound bus.. with numerous short stops along the way. We did not sleep in parking lots but in Salvation Army shelters and open fields where we could pitch a tent.. or in the homes of people we met along the way. I remember shopping for refried beans and tortillas so that we could make inexpensive burritos.. and I recall that Mike always insisted on onions. And we did not mind either. That is kind of the glory of the whole experience.. we did not mind anything.. not the food, not the places where we slept, not the people who sat next to us on the bus. We were in love with a place.. not a particular city, but a land that seemed to expand forever in front of us.

You came to take us.
(All things go. All things go.)
To re-create us.
(All things grow. All things grow.)
We had our mind set.
(All things know. All things know.)
You had to find it.
(All things go. All things go.)

The third stanza takes the song in a spiritual direction. The "you" must refer to God.. who is the only person looking to "re-create us". As so often with Sufjan, the religious implications of his songs are slightly suppressed in the lyrics.. making it hard to pigeonhole him. But if you know the lingo, the direction of the lyrics is clear enough.

The particulars of Sufjan's trip are vague, but he has told us that mistakes were made and hardships borne. Now we glimpse some of the redemption that is possible.. re-creation and growth. The line "We had our mind set" is another one that is hard to interpret.. but plugging the line into the Christian framework we could venture that this is a negative admission.. and something inside had to be shattered.

The final lines I find beautiful:

If I was crying in the van with my friend
It was for freedom from myself
and from the land
I made a lot of mistakes.
I made a lot of mistakes.
I made a lot of mistakes.

We are back in the van with the friend.. We have already gotten the hint of a theological overview for this experience.. whose key words are re-creation and growth. Now Sufjan gives us the briefest glimpse of a breakdown.. but a breakdown which also leads to strength: "freedom from myself and from the land". That last phrase in particular is odd, since it is exactly love of the land that set him out on the trip.. and that same love animates his albums. The cartoon picture of him in the liner notes for Avalanche portray him singing "This land is your land".. connecting his ideals to Woody Guthrie's vision of America. But this central song from Avalanche declares freedom from that land!

Those lines seem paradoxical and I can't quite get my mind around them. Perhaps the song represents a young man who identified himself too closely with the land.. and whose optimism, whose unbounded assumptions about the goodness of the rest of the world, is punctured by a betrayal of some kind. He has to beat a hasty retreat. Maybe to write about this expansive land one must also feel a separation from it.. a distance. If that is the case then Sufjan is describing in elusive language the beginning of his calling.. the emergence of a self who can comment on the world around him, and not just experience it.

And then come the lines that haunt everyone: "I made a lot of mistakes.. I made a lot of mistakes.." In the context of the song those mistakes are what open up the sense of separation from a the land.. which finally allows for Sufjan to sing about this land.