| Sufjan Stevens – To Be Alone with You Lyrics | 10 months ago |
| @[somwherefarbehind:47492] absolutely! We can't fall into the 'it must be autobiographical' trap, he is clearly a songwriter who loves to explore themes and create personas in his songwriting! He is a brilliant songwriter, with such an incredible ability to connect with the listener. He is a songwriter who happens to be a Christian, not a Christian songwriter, he is taking us on his personal creative journey, his explorations of themes, and we should be eternally grateful for that! His sexuality is irrelevant. I mean, does it matter whether Da Vinci was gay (he most likely was), or Bach was straight (I think we can safely presume this was the case, given his 20 children!!)? | |
| Sufjan Stevens – To Be Alone with You Lyrics | 10 months ago |
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Really guys, take a chill pill!! Sufjan in my view is the greatest song writer of his generation. He is the antithesis of everything that is bad about the contemporary music industry - his is a personal journey of exploration, he isn't chasing success or trying to ride the wave of what's 'in'. And is there any other songwriter with the ability to disembowel the listener with such regularity? His lyrics are often very layered and complex, with historical, cultural, classical and biblical references, as you might expect from someone with a masters degree in creative writing (for example, being from Australia, I thought a cardinal was a senior member of the Catholic clergy, so couldn't understand why one would hit a window, but thanks to Google I discovered it was a North American bird, and that birds hitting windows are considered to portend death!!) And his albums tend to all be explorations of a particular theme. In the case of Seven Swans, from which this song comes, the themes are very clearly Christian themes, and are in fact amongst his least complex and easiest to interpret songs as the references are quite overt. So it is fairly unlikely this song is somehow Sufjan coming out, and fessing up to same sex trists in trees!! It is very clearly an exploration of the believer's response to the realisation of Jesus' love and his sacrifice, and the personal relationship that the believer has with Jesus. I absolutely don't subscribe to the concept that a song has to be autobiographical any more than a novel, play or movie has to be - I somehow doubt George Lucas was raised on Tatooine - but given Sufjan's publicly acknowledged Christian faith, in this case it is quite likely to be reflective of his own personal response. On that note, Sufjan is not a Christian recording artist, he is a recording artist who is a Christian, which is a very different thing. The imagery is very clear and unequivocal, particularly in the second verse, where amongst other things it references the Gospel account of the Roman soldiers casting lots for Jesus' clothing at his crucifixion, Jesus not being married (not Sufjan's love interest leaving his family to be with Sufjan!!!), Jesus giving up his ghost (I think this is the word not 'goals', and would make sense as it is a direct reference to the Gospel account of Jesus' death, giving up his 'ghost', and of course could also reference the Holy Spirit and Jesus telling his followers he would send his spirit to be with them after his ascention), and of course going up on a tree, which is a clear reference to the crucifixion, as 'tree' was a very commonly used alternative to cross, particularly in the middle ages, where in fact there was a tradition which associated the tree the cross was made from with the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that Adam and Eve ate the fruit from in the Genesis account of the Garden of Eden. So I think it is pretty clear that he isn't sneaking into trees to spend time with his same sex love interest!! Great song, one of my favourites from Sufjan, brings me to tears every time I hear it (as does many a Sufjan song). |
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