Sufjan Stevens is a sad man who has—reportedly—whispered praise to his banjos at his concerts.
In celebrating the month since our first post, I decided to take a second glace at the first album that Dawson decided to review, one that he didn’t actually like. Which was odd since Carrie and Lowell is widely considered one of Sufjan’s best record so far. (Or maybe taking a purposefully controversial stance is intelligent for clickbait? I don’t actually know, I’m not an expert in audience dick-sucking.)
At first, I mostly agreed with Dawson’s review. But I confess that was mainly because I didn’t try to figure out Sufjan. I didn’t attempt to read into the lyrics, or realize that the album wasn’t just a portrait of experiemental nhilistic elder photography1. But then I did, and then I cried. I sincerely cried, reading up on Genius everything that I plainly missed.2
Ephinany can be brutal, like a sudden stomach ulcer or a crowded broken elevator. Our eurekras shroud themselves, they sometimes tease the edges of our minds.
Something hit home hard for me within this album, and that’s the actual reason I decided to write this review.
The Strongest Clan
It is the sentimentalist in me, I cannot help but feel that the synecdoche of family within art. It is the most powerful way to represent our humanity. More often than not, we cannot relate to the nuclear family, for most of us there is no feeling of empathy when we view parent and child in merry discussion at the dinner-table. This is not, in spite of popular belief, what family is.
What then, is family? Family is where we find solace and cathatrisis, it’s the perseverance of those we are forced to love and choose to hate. Family is those who are close enough to us to shape us as people. Family is a mother, bipolar and schizophrenic, and suffering from drug addiction and substance abuse.
When I was three, three maybe four,
She left us at that video store.
Be my rest, be my fantasy.
It is difficult to come anywhere close to imagining how Sufjan actually feels, here; to have your pre-determined caretaker abandon you at such a young age. To have a parent that is so irrepairably difficult, that’s a burden.
Fireworks and Forests
And yet, in this album is not anger. In this album is not bitterness or betrayal. Instead we here pleas of forgiveness and attempts at understanding.
The climax of this record is Fourth of July, where Stevens has a discussion with his passed mother. It’s where my player revolves to everytime I attempt to listen to the album in full.
There’s the seemingly blunt mantra, depicting how Carrie retells Sufjan that he needs to learn about the fleeting and fragile nature of the world by comparing it to the massive devistation of Tillamook, as well as the ephemeral beauty of the fireworks on Independence Day. In addition to this, it is difficult to say the last line doesn’t sound like the bleeding pessimism of a defeated woman:
Tell me what did you learn from the Tillamook burn?
Or the Fourth of July?
We’re all gonna die.
But, ultimately, this isn’t what gets you. You don’t feel a chill down your spine at the futile hopelessness of Carrie’s lament. You instead bawl hard at the contrast, at how heartwarming she is when speaking to him.
My little hawk, why do you cry?
The maudlin is so powerful—how deep the corny pet-names will carve into you. You cannot help but buy into the image of a deathbed filled with a broken past dressed in a pure white dress and smiling.
Verdict
This, to me, is the most spectacular thing about Carrie and Lowell. Sufjan somehow takes in such a horrific aspect of his life, and delicately lays out it’s most beautiful aspects and then appreciates them.
Having terrible parents is perhaps one of the most stress-inducing and heartbreaking situations someone can be placed into. It can sometimes feel as though loving them is a choice and hating them isn’t, but the opposite is true.
For such a situation, Stevens goes on throughout this album searching for the remedy. His answer is to forgive and love them, regardless.
This is the ephinany that comes through, since you wouldn’t be around if it weren’t for them, would you?
Notes
1: I think it’s a problem to instantly buy into the concept that an album is ‘wallpaper’ music, because it completely changes your listening experiencing. Stevens is soothing and soft, his strings are always well places and never danceable. This can create the illusion that nothing exciting is being summoned. Within this album, you couldn’t be further from the truth
2: I contemplate the trickiness and hypocrisy of using other people’s opinions and interpretations to influence how one feels about something. Is it truly an ephinany if you need somebody to spoonfeed it to you? How shallow does this make me?
(Listen to the album here)