Sufjan Stevens
Michigan
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NATN Recommended
Sufjan Stevens
Michigan
Asthmatic Kitty Records, 2003
RiYL: Beach Boys, Magnetic Fields, Elliott Smith |
Ally Sheedy co-stars as the girl from Jersey-type, also studying at Oxford, whom Lowe is overlooking in his quest to sweep Lady Victoria off her feet, show all those stuffy English types the meaning of balls, and win the big rowing championship against Harvard. After his first failed attempt to woo Lady Victoria, about midway through the movie, Ms. Sheedy asks him, "Have you ever walked across a frozen lake?"
Partly out of fear at what Lowe's response might be, I decided to turn off the television and leave the question oddly unanswered. But after switching off the set, listening for a moment to the silence surrounding that frozen lake question, I got pulled back in time. Something about the movie – some untraceable, non-specific elements – must have fired a few neurons in my brain, released a couple droplets of a random endorphin into my blood, and allowed me to feel a connection to another era of my life for a split second. Just for that moment, as I lay in my bed in Brooklyn, I could almost feel the carpet of my mom's house under my legs.
The odd thing is that this is the second time this has happened to me today, the first coming this morning as I rode the subway, listening to Sufjan Stevens' Michigan, an album I've been taken away by before. The most obvious difference between Michigan and "Oxford Blues" is that one is quite good and the other total nonsense. The movie is bad bad, well below the acceptable nostalgic bad of "The Breakfast Club." It is sub-Hughes bad. But it is woven into the fabric of my consciousness. I watched it today because I was bored and then remembered another time, years earlier when I was also bored, when I watched the same thing. And then when I watched it today, like a familiar scent, it triggered thinly associated memories.
Michigan, on the other hand, is new, exactly one year old. I have listened to it dozens of times, but all in the context of the city, the subway, and my life now. Yet the album takes me back to the Midwest and it doesn't fire just one or two memory flashes. It lights a constellation of reflective moods and small memories on nearly every listen. There are no ironic 1980s references here, or any references to Indiana at all. Just a very good songwriter, taking a sort of musical road trip around the state of his youth.
Each track is set in a different Michigan town. The opening song is named "Flint" and it's a somber prelude to the record, a piano and horn tribute to the "unemployed and underpaid" of the state's poorest town. From there, Stevens drives southwest to Lansing, and then Paradise, and so on. At moments, the narrative focuses sharply on the details of the towns' inhabitants. In the song "Upper Peninsula," the singer wears Payless shoes and watches his wife shop at K-Mart. Echoing the desperation of some lost track from Darkness On The Edge of Town he sings, "I lost my job, I lost my life." But most of the time, Stevens wanders, avoids details or anything concrete, and instead takes blurry snapshots from his car as he drives past the Michigan of his youth.
Putting the thematic, narrative framework aside for a moment, there is some amazing music at work here. Probably Stevens' biggest gift as a songwriter is his ability to weave the melody of his lovely voice with layers upon layers of intricate instrumental harmonies. This becomes readily apparent on the album's second track, "All Good Nasayers, Speak Up! Or Forever Hold Your Peace," an abrupt departure from the folky, aforementioned opening tune. At the start "Charlie Brown"-inspired piano plays with ultra-vibey vibraphone tones and skipping, jazz drumming. Eventually, Stevens begins to sing as subtle gliding guitar lines and floating backing vocals fill out the picture. The song rolls on, moving briskly in and out of perfectly thought-out sections, until ultimately reaching one helluva crescendo.
It's a very nice prelude to an album filled with similarly inspired moments, both soft and loud. Stylistically, Stevens extends from the hushed acoustic pop of Simon & Garfunkel ("Holland") to the minimalist sounds of Steve Reich ("Alanson, Crooked River") and well beyond, even into the realm of Smile-era Brian Wilson. But the pieces are put together neatly and the effect is overwhelming. Stevens is a master of atmosphere and mood. He pulls you into his Midwestern landscape and keeps you totally enthralled.
Perhaps the songwriter reaches the album's climax too early with the stunning eighth track, "Oh Detroit, Lift Up Your Weary Head (Restore! Rebuild! Reconsider!," but you won't hear me complaining. The song's horn-heavy, chiming and cheery arrangement reminds me of some pro-industry movie I watched in my third grade science class. At first dizzying, the music's myriad, interweaving layers eventually become hypnotic. It's nigh impossible to describe what each instrument is playing, so instead picture a fleet of robotic arms building an endless line of cars and a handful of brawny men controlling them, wearing white lab coats and spark-proof goggles. Over the factory's PA, blare a chorus of gleeful voices singing, "Wolverine! Industry! Public Trans! Jefferson! Michigan!" After a few inspired twists and turns, Stevens lets the song melt into a stew of intoxicating atmospheric music.
The following song, "Romulus," loses the head-spinning rush of its predecessor, and offers the listener a nice break – a soft and easy, banjo and guitar reflection on childhood. This is without question the record's most accessible song, but its also one of its most lasting. The lyrics eloquently draw a worn relationship between a mother and a son, told in just four vivid scenes. In the last of the four, Stevens brings the music down low to deliver his punch-in-the-gut of a closing line in a beautiful whisper that crushes the listener with its honesty:
We saw her once last fall.
Our grandpa died in a hospital gown.
She didn't seem to care.
She smoked in her room and colored her hair.
And I was ashamed of her.
From there, Stevens drives on to another town, sweeping over the dunes of Sleeping Bear and the sandy beaches of Sturgeon Bay, moving back and forth between the bombastic, in-your-face songs and the more emotionally charged, quiet numbers. He keeps pushing on, milking the childhood vein he's tapped for all its worth and then nothing more. Even the weakest of the record's songs ("They Also Mourn Who Do Not Wear Black") manages to deliver. No doubt, there's a formula at work here – a potent, heavy formula that takes its toll on the listener after the album's first half – but Stevens doesn't give too much away. Though this be method, there is still plenty of madness in't to keep it interesting.
Whatever the means, this album succeeds in its superficial goal of evoking a state, but it does so on a very psychological level. Stevens takes us not just to Michigan, but to the state he remembers from oh so long ago. In doing so, he carefully and artfully conveys a universal longing to relive childhood – to go back to third grade science class and family road trips to nearby relatives. On "Say Yes! To Michigan," Stevens sings, "Still I often think of going back to the farms, to the farms, golden arms, golden arms start to remind me."
Unlike a bad old movie or a box of old pictures from the attic, Michigan is not a document from the past, made long ago and preserved for future enjoyment. Instead, it's a collection of recollections, like stories told around a dinner table at the holidays. It is memory itself. Instead of being a transparent relic of mass entertainment, it is a complicated and personal reflection that deserves close study. Hopefully, as Stevens' reputation grows, this work will get the full attention it deserves.
BEN FRENCH | Ben founded NATN in the winter of 1998-1999 with fellow IU alums Troy Carpenter and Jonathan Cohen. During the day time, he's working for Nielsen Business Media, publisher of Billboard. Ben's favorite acts include Bruce Springsteen, The Clash, Sonic Youth, Elvis Costello, Talking Heads, Rolling Stones, and the Beach Boys.