Illinois

Title: Illinois
Artist: Sufjan Stevens
Label: Asthmatic Kitty
Copyright: 2005
ASIN: B0009R1T7M

Description and Critical Evaluation
Sufjan Stevens’s Illinois is a highly original and interesting work. It is the second (and last) volume in Stevens’s ambitious but short-lived project to create an album about every state in the union. (The Michigan album was the only other one he completed before abandoning the project.) Stevens doesn’t try to characterize Illinois in any rigorous way, but rather presents songs that seem to be free associations on names, places, and stories that come from the state. His eccentric titles for these meditations contribute much to the enjoyment of the album. The longest of these belongs to the second track on the album, “The Black Hawk War, or, How to Demolish an Entire Civilization and Still Feel Good About Yourself in the Morning, or, We Apologize for the Inconvenience but You’re Going to Have to Leave Now, or, ‘I Have Fought the Big Knives and Will Continue to Fight Them Until They Are Off Our Lands!’ ”. Stevens uses a great variety of instruments, including guitar, piano, flute, banjo, trumpet, alto saxophone, and cello. Many people collaborated with him by playing instruments, singing backup, and making various kinds of noises.

The first track, “Concerning the UFO Sighting Near Highland, Illinois,” immediately creates an eerie mood with reverb-heavy piano and hushed, husky vocals. “Come On! Feel the Illinoise!”, the third track, is a peppy miniature orchestral suite. There are several distinct sections in the nearly seven minute long piece, two of which have vocals. Clearly, this is not just a song with a really long instrumental interlude—the vocal sections are just a component of the piece. This is very complicated music. The ghost of the poet Carl Sandburg makes an appearance in the lyrics. In “John Wayne Gacy, Jr.” Stevens describes the serial killer and reflects on how he himself isn’t so different from Gacy: “Look underneath the floorboards for the secrets I have hid.” The song is beautiful in a melancholy way, but also very creepy. Skipping over Track 5, we come to the first of six very short tracks on the album, entitled “A Short Reprise for Mary Todd, Who Went Insane, But for Very Good Reasons.” It lasts just 48 seconds. Next is “Decatur, Or, Round of Applause for Your Stepmother!” This is the first song of Stevens’s I ever heard, and it’s still one of my favorites. It features guitar, banjo, a tight two-part vocal harmony, and whimsical, nostalgic words: “Our stepmom, we did everything to hate her/She took us down to the edge of the Decatur/We saw the lions and the kangaroo take her/Down to the river where they caught a wild alligator.” Track 10, “Casimir Pulaski Day,” is my favorite song on the album, and one of my favorite songs, period. It’s the story of a young man, probably still in high school, whose heart is broken when his ex-girlfriend is diagnosed with bone cancer. The lyrics poignantly evoke first love, the pain of losing someone, and the confusion it can bring about the role of faith in tragedy:

All the glory that the Lord has made
And the complications when I see His face
In the morning in the window 

All the glory when He took our place
But He took my shoulders and He shook my face
And He takes and He takes and He takes.

With primarily guitar, banjo, and bass accompaniment, this is probably the sparest track on the album, but it’s also the most beautiful. In Track 15, “The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades Is Out to Get Us!”, a young man discovers that he is in love with his (male) best friend: “Oh, how I meant to tease him/Oh, how I meant no harm/Touching his back with my hand I kiss him/I see the wasp on the length of my arm.” The last track, “Out of Egypt, Into the Great Laugh of Mankind, And I Shake The Dirt from My Sandals As I Run,” is entirely instrumental. It sounds rather like the work of a minimalist classical composer. It begins with a single pulsing drone, which grows louder as new instruments are added. For the first half of the piece, a piano melody wanders through it, fading out of hearing as the texture becomes thicker and thicker. In the second half, instruments drop away, eventually leaving just a repeated motif on the glockenspiel and the original drone. I’m not sure what this last track has to do with Illinois.

Why is this title included?
This critically acclaimed album will appeal to teens with a taste for complex music. A couple of songs are about teens, and the lyrics explore themes relevant to teens' lives such as questioning sexuality and dealing with loss.