Sufjan Stevens – Chicago

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  General Comment:I think this song is about the human experience of the search for satisfaction and maturity.
  The song starts off "I fell in love again".
  This is an extremely common human experience. We find ourselves suddenly in love with someone or something. Perhaps even and idea. Like driving to New York or Chicago to have new and exciting experiences.
  But the only down side to this human experience is that we usually only are in love with something in our mind and find ourselves moving on, unsatisfied.
  
  I think the really important thing to notice is the conversation in the song.
  Part of the song is about seeking satisfaction and understanding. But in between these lines is the realization that all these things go to recreate us and make us grow.
  He repeats "I made a lot of mistakes" many times because that is just how we as humans feel. We make mistakes.
  But we can be reassured that these mistakes and ideas only to go to refine us and recreate us.
  Essentially, life is a series of realizations of how stupid you were five minutes ago. But it's all part of God's plan to cultivate and grow us and eventually bring us to himself.

  Flag nehemiahjon April 01, 2013   Link

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  General Comment:The obvious interpretation is the one that connects you (us) personally to the lyrics and to the music as the artist intended - for me, it's about the bitter-sweet joy of reaching adulthood and emancipation from our parents and experiencing life on our under-educated terms for the first time.

  Flag falangon December 01, 2012   Link

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• +3
  My Interpretation:To me this song is about idealism. I can relate to it on a lot of levels. When I was younger i would read about this exotic places and imagine what my life would be like there. Like when he says he "was in love with a place, in my mind, in my mind" but when he get there i don't think it was the place he built it up to be in his mind. Which explains why he then goes to New York once again hoping that this will be the place where he'll be free and be himself. But it seems like me he found that nowhere is going to really live up to what you make it out to be in your mind. You have to be realistic and make the best of where ever you are. We live in an imperfect world and nowhere is going be great all the time.

  Flagged chuck9259on October 28, 2012   Link

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  My Interpretation:The biggest clue to the meaning of this song is the line "We sold our clothes to the state." Why would the state purchase someone's clothing? Presumably because that person is becoming a ward of the state.
  
  A ward of the state might be a child, but in this case I think it's someone in a mental institution. Someone who would say, "I made a lot of mistakes, in my mind, in my mind."
  
  Now let me tie this all together. The song is addressed to a person who came to the mental institution, where he picked up several people. He drove these people in a van to New York. In this trip they experienced great new freedom, and they all grew from the experience.
  
  Obviously this song is about the 1989 comedy film The Dream Team, starring Michael Keaton!
  
  The only line that I can't sort out is the mention of Chicago. I can only guess Sufjan added this at the last minute to fit the song into the Illinois theme, going so far as to use this for the song title.

  Flag CopaceticOpuson June 11, 2012   Link

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• +3
  My Interpretation:I think this has to do with a guy who keeps dropping everything to restart his life. He first tries to be optimistic and drive to Chicago. (I fell in love again. All things go, All things go. Drove to Chicago.) By saying he fell in love AGAIN, that must mean he "falls in love" and drops his life to move for a girl often. "All things go" means he dropped everything he had to move for her. He couldn't even afford it so he had to sell his clothes to the state. He sold everything and gave up his life for this new one. Eventually, he found out moving for her was a mistake and he shouldn't have dropped his life to restart it with this girl. Then, he ends up doing the same mistake over again. He wants to be optimistic and restart his life in New York. Him and his buddy take a van over to NY and he can't even afford it. He's so poor he has to sleep in parking lots. It's like history is repeating itself. He had to sell his clothes in order to afford living in Chicago and now he has to sleep in parking lots in order to live in New York. He then says "If I was crying, it was for freedom, from myself and from the land." This is to show how he now hates New York and wishes he never moved there. He then found out that was a mistake, too. So he keeps reiterating "I made a lot of mistakes. I made a lot of mistakes." because he realizes you shouldn't drop everything and everyone for wishful thinking. "You came to take us, to recreate us." - That is his inner self talking about how he wanting to recreate his life and in doing so, it was a huge mistake. He shouldn't have been seeking a new life somewhere else. He should have been trying to fix his current one.

  Flag omgitbekristinaon February 25, 2012   Link

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  General Comment:At one level he's describing a free spirit existence among the big cities. On another level he's describing mortality, and transcendence into the next life. As is usual with Stevens there are Christian undertones....the acknowledgement of "mistakes" (sin) and growth. This song is very uplifting.

  Flag bkabbotton August 19, 2011   Link

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  General Comment:He's basically just saying he tried to find his soul self no matter what lengths it took and that he's made alot of ego driven mistakes in his life. He wants to free himself from the ego driven world which is all in our heads. It's like a disease. Smart man.

  Flag Carena722on January 09, 2011   Link

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  Song Meaning:This is a fine song indeed. Road trips don't have enough representation in modern song. This guy has written an epic song about the beauty of a road trip. Love him for it.

  Flag leonspruceon October 01, 2010   Link

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  General Comment:I'm not a Christian, but I do find myself enjoying a lot of Christian folk like Sufjan and Mumford and Sons. Unless it's blatant, I don't much care what the singer was actually singing about, I just take from it what I want. Audiences aren't passive. We can interpret the song however we like and we can take whatever meaning from it that is important to us.

  Flagged highonsugaron July 02, 2010   Link

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  General Comment:A coming of (spiritual) age story. The transitory/eternal juxtaposed in verse/chorus. The chorus is the eternal fact of Jesus’s love. It conveys the unacknowledged presence of Jesus in Sufjan’s life, even as Sufjan’s wanderings were leading him elsewhere.
  
  He sold his clothes to the state, a odd statement. Strong hint of metaphor, but can’t pinpoint it. The sense is of blithely undervaluing something.
  
  In an interview Sufjan alludes to a kind of survival game he played with college mates on a trip to Chicago, something about who could last longest w/o any resources. A foolhardy act of youth.
  
  He made a lot of mistakes, in his mind. I love the “in my mind” part. It very succinctly captures an immature perspective.
  
  He drove to New York, in love with the idea of New York. Hardcore fans recognize this as his trip to New York to make it big with his first band, Marzuki. If you get wiser as you get older (never a sure bet), the smallness/shallowness of your motivations makes you wince more than anything else.
  
  Back in the van, with his friend, Sufjan is crying, probably lamenting the band’s failure, not realizing true fulfillment was never to be had there in the first place.
  
  Thus, his true mistake: looking for fulfillment in things, in fame, in relationships, in experiences. (i.e., in the ephemeral).
  
  In this recognition, Sufjan’s narrative merges with Jesus’s. And they intermingle in the final chorus. One pictures a crying Sufjan, comforted by Jesus, lamenting his mistake.
  
  
  I give my interpretations of many Sufjan Stevens songs here: mindthatknowsitself.tumblr.com

  Flag TheLightIsMineon June 08, 2010   Link

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