Sufjan put another version of this song on a Kill Rock Stars compilation called The Sound the Hare Heard. Here's what he said about the song in the liner notes:
"I wrote quite a few oblique homage pieces that never made it on the Illinois album, including a brief meditation for Adlai Stevenson, Illinois' beloved governor, presidential hopeful, UN ambassador, healthy Unitarian, and the great American voice of conscience. Today you might call him Obama's saintly predecessor. Or the last man of political virtue. In my research, of course, I was much more interested in his one biographical blemish: as a boy he accidentally killed a childhood friend with a rifle. Very little has been written about this incident, but it has been said that its ramifications could be felt in his political benevolence, in his empathy for those less fortunate, and in his lifelong effort to serve others."
Man, those liner notes were tiny. Also, when i die, I'd like Sufjan to write my obituary.
Sufjan put another version of this song on a Kill Rock Stars compilation called The Sound the Hare Heard. Here's what he said about the song in the liner notes:
"I wrote quite a few oblique homage pieces that never made it on the Illinois album, including a brief meditation for Adlai Stevenson, Illinois' beloved governor, presidential hopeful, UN ambassador, healthy Unitarian, and the great American voice of conscience. Today you might call him Obama's saintly predecessor. Or the last man of political virtue. In my research, of course, I was much more interested in his one biographical blemish: as a boy he accidentally killed a childhood friend with a rifle. Very little has been written about this incident, but it has been said that its ramifications could be felt in his political benevolence, in his empathy for those less fortunate, and in his lifelong effort to serve others."
Man, those liner notes were tiny. Also, when i die, I'd like Sufjan to write my obituary.