When I was like 15 and I moved to a new place with my family and I didn't have any friends yet, "I was invited for once" hit me so so so hard. Because I was friendless and I just wanted to be invited for once.. Then at some point I was.
This video/song perfectly encapsulates the small midwest college experience. So much nostalgia----I cry every time I watch this, and I've been watching it for a decade.
Pls someone write what he says in comment section. I ain't a native english speaker and I can't listen what he says properly. I need subtitle but there's no subtitle on video that was made 13 years ago
skipped beginning because i can't tell The very first song I played, actually world debut, it's a song from a theme eight years ago that I wrote--uh, ten years ago--I had a series of these silly songs I wrote for each the planets, and the first one that I played tonight is based on a variation of a confrontation between Jupiter and Pluto, large masses against smaller masses. As you know, Pluto has been demoted to, uh, no longer is a planet but is just a celestial object. This song is in honor of Pluto. This next song is sort of generated from this idea, of my impulse to always create many many many songs about one particular thing, because I'm sort of driven by concepts and conceits and things like that. And I had been writing a series of songs about cars. And one that recently has obssessed me is the Chevrolet Avalanche. It's one of the most impressive, uh, manifestations, of...of...man's childish imagination let loose, um, in this sort of capitalist economics--erm, fueled by, uh, uh...uh....... fantasies, Peter Pan fantasies and uh, um...driving fast down the expressways of America in this gigantic, um, sort of, transformer...toy.
Maybe the saddest song he's written, although most of his songs are sad. This one got me in the feels tonight. That friend really made an impact on him. Sufjan was clearly a really sensitive kid.
"I remember in Elementary School when my friend Opie was killed, and it was the first time I really experienced a death of a friend. And the grievance counselor came to school and said: ‘This was Opie’s desk, he no longer occupies the desk. Now he occupies heaven.’ And it was really strange because there was this palpable physical and emotional vacancy where he was. There was this space, this energy beforehand but now it no longer is there which was really difficult for me to kind of manage that. And then as I get older, dealing with other deaths - friends and family, grandparents and my mother - and I started to realize that there’s all these vacancies that are created and yet I still feel this sort of weight - this heaviness from it. So it seems bullshit that there is a vacancy there, there is actually a palpable, physical weight in which we carry around, at least I carry around, and I started to think its because even though they no longer occupy the physical space - they now occupy my space." Sufjan Stevens, Chicago Theater 4/24/2015
Thank you, as toev said, for sharing this! I love this song so much, as I have grieved for friends lost when we were young. Thank you Sufjan for writing such a beautiful song.
What is this occasion/performance/event? So odd... like a recording session? In a weird stage/space? Young students accompanying him? In a kooky little jacket?
I had an Imaginary pet rock once. My mom would say why dont you just get one of These Rocks right here as a pet? I would say no, I don't want to be weird.
I love Sufjan Stevens in general but there has always been something about this particular song that really gets me. He humanizes Gacy in the beginning of the song by showing us that he was an innocent child who was traumatized. When he says "oh my God are you one of them?" he shows us that his victims are just as real as us, and then at the end when he states "And in my best behavior I am really just like him. Look beneath the floorboards for the secrets I have hid" he reminds us that he too is a sinner who has dirty secrets just like everyone else. Everyone in the narrative is humanized. Everyone has good and evil in them is the message I get from this song, and no one is without sin or the possibility of redemption.
you make it beautiful, friend you make it worth it to the end you put a hole in my head just like you put a fire in the tree ever since dawn and ever since when you put the note in my pocket again and you said you wanted to meet me at three i was invited for once yes, i was invited for once you make it difficult, friend you make it worth it to the end you put a hole in our heads just like you put a fire in the tree and ever since dawn and ever since three we made the plans at your party to be and we tied the ribbon beside your back tree yes, we tied it upside down yes, we tied it upside down
