“Let’s Talk About A Holiday That’s Not Christmas Or About A Minor Polish Civic Hero”
“Colorado, Now That’s An Interesting State”
“A Guitar, A Bass, And A Drum, That’s All The Instruments I Need On This Song”
“The Gender Of The Person I’m Singing About Isn’t Ambiguous At All”
“No Biblical References Here”
“Let’s Have A Party, Not A Crisis Of Faith”
“This Song, Like All The Others, Clocks In At A Tight 3:15″
“I Have A Complicated Relationship With My Brother, Not a Serial Killer I’ve Never Met”
“My Stepmother Did Her Best; No Use Complaining”
“Let’s Bring This Instrumental Passage To A Close”
“People Who Went Insane In The Past Don’t Remind Me Of You At All”
“Lick It Up”
“Characters From Persian Mythology And Flannery O’Connor Stories Have No Place In Rock Music”
“This Dying Bird Is Not A Christ Figure”
“The 1883 World Fair Has No Relevance For Our Modern Lives”
“I Had A Pretty Good Time At Bible Study And No One Is Dead”
“No Parentheticals”
“You’re Not Going To Have To Look Up Any Greek Theological Terms Or Ancient Near Eastern General Names After You Finish Listening To This Song”
“We Actually Touched Each Other Instead Of Just Dreaming About It In The Late Afternoon”
Tags: music, sufjan stevens
Everything is a Christ figure, up to and including dying birds.
That’s the 1 thing I learned from high school English class – Christ figures are everywhere!
ESPECIALLY dying birds
Dying birds are like the Christiest figures of all.
shit. does that make me the second coming? all i am is a dead bird in a questionably human body.
This is why I’m going to name my strictly-imaginary first album “Everybody’s Jesus”.
Song topics: Batman, Billy Budd, Adonais, Vampire Bill, all the ways in which I am like more than you are like Jesus, The Last Starfighter, some various Tennyson, and Buffy.
The titular apostrophe is going to do a lot of work.
please, no speaking ill of our nation’s greatest holiday, Casimir Pulaski Day.
What about Tadeusz Kościuszko though
HELL TO THE YEAH! That dude got me so many days of school off as a kid. Chicago for the win!! =D
I’m Not Whispering
I have forwarded this article to my brother, which should ensure I don’t have to see him this Christmas.
A lot of Sufjan Stevens fans, in my experience, are even more humourless than a lot of Radiohead fans. Just the thought of them all being annoyed by this column fills me with delight
Wait, are we??? I did not know we were supposed to be humorless!
Oh no, is that really true? I love Sufjan Stevens, but mostly because I find all the stuff referenced here delightfully unnecessary. I thought that was part of the charm! I’ve been doing it wrong this whole tiiiiime!
I’m with you! I love his music and I love this blog post and everything is fine.
When I say a lot of Sufjan Stevens fans, obviously I’m not referring to anyone on this website. You’re all awesome people with great senses of humour, which is why you’re here
I really, really appreciate that the “Sufjan Stevens fans are humorless” comment led to immediate, earnest cries of indignation from Sufjan Stevens fans.
Oh, I was just trying to make a joke like “I’ve been doing it wrong this whole time!” I don’t know how anyone can’t laugh at a person who makes a song called “Christmas Unicorn.”
IT’S CALLED CHRISTMAS UNICORN.
CHRISTMAS.
UNICORN.
If you’re not laughing, I feel like you might be doing it wrong.
I love this and I’m a fan (or was, a decade ago).
I live in Chicago and now every Casimir Pulaski Day I can’t stop thinking about osteosarcoma. THANKS SUFJAN.
I live in a small town in Massachusetts and there’s a statue of Casimir Pulaski in a park downtown for reasons I have not yet learned.
I live in Chicago and I get so excited when I discover other Pulaski references. My FIL grew up in Pulaski, VA (small town in the Blue Ridge Mountains, nearish Virginia Tech) and I was AMAZED when I learned that. And just recently, one of my FB friends mentioned that her dad was at a conference in Pulaski, TN, and again, I got happy. I mean, he was a Revolutionary War hero, so it makes sense that they named towns after him all over the place (there’s a Lafayette, IN and that doesn’t seem weird to me). It’s probably provincial of me to associate Pulaski so exclusively with Chicago and the huge Polish community here, but I do.
“I Prefer Sex To Cuddling”
My boyfriend borrowed my ipod this weekend and came back with “why is there so much Suhf-jann Stevens on here?”
I Didn’t Cry–I Didn’t Cry at All
Aaaand this is when I find Seven Swans on Spotify and cry at my desk instead of in my high school car.
I don’t know if the intended result of Mallory’s post was to induce an overwhelming urge to listen to “Seven Swans” but it did it to me too.
Illinois(e) is my go-to for many reasons, not just because it’s the best. That Djohariah song off the All Delighted People EP is pretty amazing though.
how great would a sufjan concept album of heathers quotes be?
fuck me gently (with a chainsaw)
chaos is what killed the dinosaurs, darling
i love my dead gay son
what is your damage?
heather, my love, there’s a new sheriff in town
I’m interested in this album and would like to subscribe to its newsletter
As a proud owner of the original cast recording of the Heathers musical, I’m behind this.
Okay but at least half of these are obviously the titles of Panic! At The Disco songs.
The last one feels Decemberist.
“I Love My Dead Gay Son” might not be a likely TITLE for an actual Sufjan song, but it could totally be a SUMMARY of an actual Sujan song.
Now do Iron & Wine!
Came here to say that!!
I love Sufjan and this is very accurate.
“I went to a city and it was just a city not a metaphor for faith.”
I request Songs From A Bruce Springsteen Album Where Nobody Wants To Escape Their Suburban Hometown:
Born to Run A Small Accounting Firm
Everybody Has A Happy Heart and a 401k
Jungleland (Time To Trim The Hedges)
http://www.clickhole.com/quiz/how-many-these-spri…
bahahah “Sometimes I Wear A Baseball Cap And Drive A Taxi Around Newark And Nobody Recognizes Me”
Rosalita Let’s Stay in and Watch Netflix Tonight
Adam Raised Cain at His Neighborhood Association Meeting Regarding Sprinkler Restrictions
My Father’s House Was a Very Happy Place
Now I Live in an Extremely Pleasant Mansion on the Hill
This Is Definitely Not a Stolen Car Nor a Metaphor for My Penis
Oh god I want to be good at this because I’m a huge Springsteen fan and I love these posts almost as much…but I’m not. So I’ll just have to be content enjoying the humorwork of others.
“Characters From John Steinbeck And Flannery O’Connor Stories Have No Place In Rock Music”
This one works just as well for Springsteen. Now do the Hold Steady!
Man, these posts just really make me understand that I do not listen to music very thoroughly and, in particular, am terrible at spotting anything that’s about religion.
Pro ip: all of Seven Swans is based on biblical stories.
“Is this Sufjan song gay or is it about Jesus?”
Both, always both.
The answer is Bi and Yes.
Well this post has taught me that I’m here for this series with equal enthusiasm whether it’s about something I love (everything up to this point) or something I think is hot garbage (this asshole and his goddamn orchestral bullshit).
All The Marimbas At Your Local High School Plus Their Lower Tier Concert Choir
Wait that’s not the song subject…I’ll see myself out.
Why would anyone write about the 1883 World’s Fair when they could write about the far superior 1893 World’s Fair?
For the melancholy of the Inferior World’s Fair that knows it will never compare.
The 50 States Project is one of the most disappointing abandoned projects ever*. As soon as I heard about it though I knew it was probably overly ambitious.
*The second one being A Topiary, Shane Carruth’s movie that he spent years on but never raised enough cash to produce.
I’m going off a half-remembered – not even half remembered, like, 1/8th remembered – Bust interview here, but I thought i read that he was joking about doing all 50 states but everyone took him seriously?
I don’t know the guy, but something does tell me he’s not great at communicating sarcasm.
“This Song Is In 4/4”
It’s always fun to contemplate the timeline in which Stevens commits to the 50 States Project and spends the next seven decades turning out increasingly desperate and resentful hyperlocal concept albums.
#5: Pennysylvania: Sufjan Stevens Doesn’t Particularly Care for this State (It’s Not Fair or Rational, He Just Doesn’t, That’s All) So Let’s Get It Out of the Way Early! (2018)
#17: Sufjan Stevens Presents…Pretty Much Just Straight Covers of All the Songs From Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska (2024)
#25: In the Middle of the Journey of Our Life, Sufjan Stevens Found Himself in Vermont, the Granite State (2037)
#26: It Turns Out that Sufjan Stevens had Vermont and New Hampshire Mixed Up Last Time Around, So Here’s The Actual Vermont Album (2038)
#31: Mississippi God Fucking Damn It (2043)
#42: Sufjan Stevens was Halfway Done with the Alaska Album When the Lord’s Republic of Siberia Conquered the State In Question, So, Uh, Have an Obsolete EP, I Guess (2049)
#43: Sufjan Stevens Held Off On Doing Washington State in the Perverse Hope that the LROS Army would Obviate His Commitments Again, But the Stupid Bastards Haven’t Made It Past Edmonton in Six Years of Total Warfare, So (2055)
#48: Climate Change Has Rendered Georgia Absolutely Inhospitable to Plant Life, But Guess What? You’re Still Getting Two Dozen Winking Ditties About Peaches and the Trees They Grow On (2060)
#50: Sufjan Stevens Detests Arkansas and the Flesh Cults Who Hold Sway There! (And You Penn Staters Have Done Nothing to Change My Mind About You Either) (2078)
This made me giggle so hard I nearly spilled coffee all over my keyboard, so thank you!
Oh man I was about to come down so hard on you for mixing up New Hampshire and Vermont, but then you were making a very funny joke! A+ would read again.
Pretty sure this is the soundtrack to Fallout 3
This is wonderful and you should feel good about the time it took you to write it.
A+ comment, five stars
Lol OH DEAR GOD if Sufjan did mississippi god damn I think nina simone would just come back to life and be SO MAD.
Sufjan Stevens unzips himself to reveal he’s been David Foster Wallace all along.
“This Is Not an Obscure Christmas/Holiday Song”
It keeps the Ancient Ones out of your realm, with the help of its pigeon army. Go and leave an offering of paczkis on March 2 to ensure the spiritual protection of your family.
My Life Is Nothing Like a Highway, and This Car Is Just a Car and Does Not Represent My Soul In Any Way
I Get Along Quite Well With My Dad, Actually
I Have A Steady Job And Always Pay The Bills On Time
I Do Not Yearn For An Unattainable Woman Of A Higher Social Class
A Nice Town Where Most People Have Jobs and Are Fairly Content!
No Xylophones or Banjos Here, No Sir
The comments here surpass the original post. I freaking love Sufjan.
Party In The Club
“Trimming a Tree Because Of An Insect Swarm Not Because Of A Holiday.”
"I Love My Dead Gay Son" might not be a likely TITLE for an actual Sufjan song, but it could totally be a SUMMARY of an actual Sujan song.
A+ comment, five stars
Okay so this probably won’t make much sense if you didn’t read long-running baseball parody The Dugout before it became only accessible through archive, but Sufjan has already made a Colorado album! It’s called “Colorado is Colo-Radical!”
https://web.archive.org/web/20091111070007/http:/…
Andrew Bird Didn’t Feel Inspired to Develop A New Concept Album About Tumors Based On Any Of These References
1893!!!
Sufjan Stevens unzips himself to reveal he's been David Foster Wallace all along.
dear god this is the best article i’ve ever read