![]() ![]() "You" shows up again in "To Be Alone with You," a quicker-paced tune, where the subject is more explicit. Stevens sings of "throwing all my thoughts stroying every bet I’ve made," emptying himself to be joined with "you." He’s pushing aside his own thoughts to make room for God. And I’m preparing every part for you." This signals the intention of the album these are words of worship, a believer’s response to the call of God. The spare lyrics address no one in particular: "I am joining all my thoughts to you. "All the Trees of the Field Will Clap Their Hands" opens with the gentle plucking of banjo strings ushering in Stevens’s soft, thin voice, which is joined by a female chorus chanting "da da, dada-da-da" behind the lyrics, and then a piano enters with its own slow repetition of notes. Seven Swans begins as Michigan does: a single instrument and a slowly building momentum containing layers of repetition. The album works as an extended theological reflection on sacrifice, gratitude, and the nature of God. Gone was most of Michigan’s historical/geographical specificity-no tracks like "Detroit, Lift Up Your Weary Head!" or "The Upper Peninsula" or "Alanson, Crooked River"-and in its place were song titles such as "Abraham," "The Transfiguration," and "A Good Man is Hard to Find" (a title borrowed from the Flannery O’Connor short story). What the critics had missed in Michigan, the personal reflections and religious references that surfaced but didn’t dominate, took center stage in Seven Swans, released the following year. They hailed the record as a political-musical triumph, and eagerly anticipated a follow-up album extending Stevens’s musical social criticism. ![]() Stevens’s high, light, but emotionally affecting voice, his eclectic choice of instruments, and his blending of genres (folk, rock, jazz, funk, and more) had critics swooning. A modest but moving meditation by Stevens on his home state, Michigan treats subjects as disparate as family woes and economic disaster in Flint. Sufjan (pronounced SOOF-YAHN) Stevens is a Detroit native who describes himself as "Anglo-Catholic" and his Christianity as "the most important thing in my life." He was a relatively unknown quantity on the music scene until 2003, when he released his third album, Greetings from Michigan: The Great Lake State. It seemed nearly impossible that a musician whose songs are unabashedly informed by his faith could actually produce quality material. The genre is typically marred by the predictable, heavy-handed musical stylings of any number of cookie-cutter bands whose evangelical intentions guide their aesthetics. What initially blinded me to the nature of Stevens’s songs was simply the fact that I find most contemporary Christian music dreadful. How had this escaped me the previous dozen times I’d heard the song? I had majored in theology, for Lamb of God’s sake how could I have missed the explicitly theological nature of this song? Of the entire album? More important, what sort of a musician and songwriter would write such a piece? Lost in the cloud, a sign, Son of Man, Son of God." Lost in the cloud, a voice, Lamb of God, we draw near. But there they were, floating above the track’s gorgeous final crescendo: "Lost in the cloud, a sign, Son of Man, turn your ear. Not that I should have been surprised-the song that had struck me most after all is called "The Transfiguration." I was so transfixed by the song’s lush, unusual musical landscape-starting with a simple banjo and building to a layered mix of horns, drums, guitar, keyboard, and xylophone-that I had barely noticed the words. After a week of obsessive listening, it suddenly hit me: he’s using messianic language. He may use some hammer ons, and theres a 2nd guitar that comes in after the chorus, you can fill in a couple of your own riffs to make up for the lack of two guitars if you want.For the better part of the last month my iPod has served as little more than a delivery vehicle for the music of Sufjan Stevens, a thirty-year-old Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter. This is pretty close, took me awhile to pick out. I kept trying to find this song, and everyone seems to have it totally wrong, and i cant figure out if they are listening to the same song or not. ![]()
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