How have I only just seen this. I should have seen this a decade ago and it would have penetrated me so deeply. I mean it still does, but me as a 15 year old gay young child, it would be different for her.
I am absolutely transfixed by how there seems to exist no interview on the internet with Sufjan Stevens with acceptable video quality. Fascinating. Maybe he's blurry and low res in real life?
Lyrics: His father was a drinker and his mother cried in bed Folding John Wayne's t-shirts when the swing set hit his head The neighbors, they adored him For his humor and his conversation Look underneath the house there Find the few living things, rotting fast, in their sleep Oh the dead Twenty-seven people Even more, they were boys, with their cars, summer jobs Oh my God Ooh, are you one of them? He dressed up like a clown for them With his face paint white and red And on his best behavior In a dark room on the bed he kissed them all He'd kill ten thousand people With a slight of his hand, running far, running fast to the dead He took off all their clothes for them He put a cloth on their lips, quiet hands, quiet kiss on the mouth And in my best behavior I am really just like him Look beneath the floor boards For the secrets I have hid
And the winter moves about Illinois When my sister picks a fight With the Alexander boy And my father locks the car By the store Still we figure out the keys And follow him once more Sufjan & Rosie: Oh my God We see it on the floor The woman on the bed The ankle brace she wore Stones and sled It could have been some other The mind that knows itself Has a mind to serve the other But we run back Scratching at the door Scratching at the door If I'm hiding in the sleeves Of my coat When my father runs undressed He's pointing at my throat And my brother has a fit In the snow And the traffic stops for miles We take him by the elbow Oh my God (oh my God) The shuffling at the floor (no one came) A mind that knows itself (to our side) Is a mind that knows much more (to carry us away from danger) So we run back (oh my God) Scrambling for cover (no one came) A mind that knows itself (to our side) Has a mind to kill the other (to carry us away from danger) Oh my God (oh my God) He left us now for dead He left us now for dead
So proud to be from where he grew up. I met the girl who went to prom with him. Actually knew her sister even better. He is an absolute provocation of all things emotional, raw and real and I'm so grateful Chicago bloomed as it did for me to pay tribute to someone so talented from my hometown? I know it means not much, but your wanderlust and absolute need to awaken emotion in other beings is the fruit of so many before' s labour. Sufjan, you will be carried in my pocket, always. Thank you for changing how people see grief and joy and all of the above. You still move me, and the rest, to this day. You're fantastic. 💜
Music, when combined with a pleasurable idea, is poetry. Music without the idea, is simply music. Without music or an intriguing idea, color becomes pallor, man becomes carcass, home becomes catacomb. And the dead are but for a moment, motionless. The dodos are true musicians, whose music always takes me on an adventure with every song.
