This Land is Sufjan Stevens'
Taking cues from Woody Guthrie, an indie favorite sets out to musically chronicle every state in the nation.
By Geoff Aung, Columbia University
Tuesday August 16, 2005
Listen to Sufjan Steven’s music here
Midwestward I go free.
“Sufjan,” says the man himself, “is one of those charmingly militaristic Armenian names. I think it means ‘comes with a sword’ or something like that.”
Sufjan Stevens (pronounced “soof-yahn”), a singer songwriter of the indie folk persuasion, reminds me a bit of Woody Guthrie. Woody never had any stomach for explicit politics – this is, after all, the man that once said, “Left wing, chicken wing, it don’t make no difference to me.” Still, his Jacob Riis-like fascination with and empathy for the working migrant poor set against the Dust Bowl and the emerging Popular Front gave his work an inevitably radical, political cast.
Particularly with his latest album, Illinois, Michigan native Sufjan takes a page out of Woody’s play book. “I’ve always been interested in the working class,” he says, and tracks on this most recent LP include “Man of Metropolis Steals Our Hearts” and “To the Workers of the Rockford River Valley …” While the latter track is entirely instrumental, the former speaks of a “steel man,” whom Sufjan interchangeably refers to as a “real man”: “Only a steel man came to recover / If he had run from gold, carry over / We celebrate our sense of each other / We have a lot to give another.”
 On Illinois, Sufjan uses 22 tracks and more than 30 instruments (he plays all of them!) to create a broad, panoramic musical postcard of the state. Sufjan mines the history of the state, he converses with its poets, he engages with its cities, and he grapples with its mythologies. To find his stories he interviewed friends, read books and pored over police logs. A prairie fire near Peoria, a UFO sighting in Highlands and John Wayne Gacy, the infamous Chicago serial killer, all make appearances. And the overall sound is gorgeous and powerful – complicated string arrangements, multi-part choral harmonies, dramatic horn parts and, sometimes, just the quiet, almost acapella back and forth between a male and female voice.
The song titles indicate that there are some big ambitions at work here. One song, a two-minute instrumental rendering of the Black Hawk War, has a title that is 53 words long. Other songs are listed as having Parts I and II, and yet another rocks eight exclamation points and a bit of onomatopoeia. I could list them, but it’d basically take up all the space for this article.
The extravagancies of the song titles, of course, are indicative of Illinois’ general wild-eyed ambition. Stevens recently announced his intention of making a record for each of the 50 United States. In 2003, he released Greetings from Michigan. Two down, 48 states to go.
Part of what seems to have driven Sufjan’s 50 state project is cultural inquiry – an exploration of identity. Simplistic analysis just ain’t Sufjan’s thing. In America, the “increasing obsession with binaries worries me,” he says. “Good vs. evil. Right and wrong. I can’t understand that.” By complicating and enhancing the dialogue, Stevens hopes to create a more meaningful discussion. In his world, red and blue states don’t exist. Instead, his approach to his state-by-state project is diffuse and almost reverent as he tries to create a patchwork of sound that somehow defines something American.
And he’s not just an American, but a religious one. Though he avoids being defined as a Christian musician, if you hunt through his lyrics, though it isn’t always opaque, faith is often quietly present. Like fellow religious indie rocker David Bazan (Pedro the Lion’s frontman), Stevens’ relationship with his faith is an extremely personal affair, one that he has no interest in foisting upon others. “I don’t want to be the face of my religion,” Stevens says. Nevertheless, it pains him to see the way faith is thrown around in today’s politically divisive culture. “Religion was never meant to be used as leverage,” he says with disgust.
His earlier album, Seven Swans , is rather explicitly religious – repeatedly referencing Christian imagery and the Bible stories of Abraham and Jesus’ trip to the Mount. Accordingly, in 2004, Spin called him “Elliott Smith after ten years of Sunday school.”
Sufjan’s cultural multilingualism, inclusive optimism and his humble faith make him, I believe, a walking, talking political statement. He is an artist, but he is not an elitist. He is a man of faith, but he’ll let you keep yours. His 50 state project seems unlikely and utopian, but I’ll wait with hopeful ears and some available iPod space.
Listen to Sufjan Stevens:
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