After his 2003 breakthrough Michigan, full of bouncy chamber-pop, came an album of sparse folk meditations (2004’s Seven Swans) themed to his Christian faith. Photograph: Chris Pizzello/Invision/APīut every time Stevens has edged too close to the precipice of mainstream success, he has reacted by releasing something challenging or fogged in darkness.
“I don’t want to be part of any room full of adults hemming and hawing over plastic trophies.”įor your consideration … Stevens performs at the Oscars with St Vincent. “I didn’t want to have anything to do with that world and that culture,” he says.
But for the artist himself, shrinking into his pink-and-black striped blazer as Hollywood A-listers schmoozed around him, there was not much to celebrate. His devoted fans celebrated this appearance as a moment of long-overdue mainstream recognition for the spotlight-shy then-42-year-old 26 million viewers were watching at home, after all. Mystery of Love – his bittersweet folk ballad, written for Luca Guadagnino’s Call Me By Your Name – was up for best original song and Stevens had been invited to perform. He had never paid much attention to them before being nominated in 2018. The event was, he says, “a horrifying Scientology end-of-year prom” representative of “everything I hate about America and popular culture”. “Honestly, one of the most traumatising experiences of my entire life,” the songwriter half-laughs, half-groans. Original here: youtube.T he Oscars were an ordeal for Sufjan Stevens. I think there’s been too much made from fear and condemnation to manipulate people. And I think doubt is important and questioning and all that. There’s a necessity for casualness, you know, because I think fear and anxiety are not elements in faith. It’s the most important thing to me really but it’s also really important I don’t get too caught up in it. There’s no condemnation in Christ, that’s one of the fundamentals of Christianity. I can’t make any claims about other religions.
All I can account for is myself and my own belief and that’s a pretty tall order just to take account of myself. “You know, I’m no religious expert, and I don’t make any claims about the faith. However, despite this interpretation, the line “I’ll never know the man who loved me” has(kind of pathetically) sparked numerous debates about Sufjan’s ambiguous sexuality. Though the lyrics are often mistaken for being romantic (and most likely this was Sufjan’s intention), ‘To Be Alone With You’ is most commonly seen as being a song about Sufjan’s relationship with Jesus. Sufjan’s tender vocals and sparse instrumentation (mostly banjo) make for an intimate listening. Filled with some of Sufjan's most candidly and open songs on Christianity, 'Seven Swans' is a mystical experience indeed, filled with biblical references, apocalyptic language, divine inspiration and prophetic voicing. Sufjan Awareness Month (maybe at this point best referred to as SAM) continues, this time looking at Stevens 2006 release 'Seven Swans'.
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