Wednesday, March 11, 2015

Be My Rise Be My Fantasy

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The second single off of Sufjan Stevens' new album Carrie & Lowell is called "Should Have Known Better" and it has just, as they say, dropped today - listen to it above. (You can hear the first single right here.) This is one of my favorite songs off the new album, which I've been listening to non-stop for several days now...

I said as much on Twitter the other day but let it be said here, for all to see: Carrie & Lowell is Sufjan's best album since he made his best album Seven Swans eleven years ago. I'm not disparaging everything in between by any means but where Illinoise and Michigan and The Age of Adz all reach epic highs they're also all sometimes scattered - no such divergence here. Carrie & Lowell is contained and lovely, just lovely - at times it's so goddamned sad you'll probably bawl in public (just wait until you hear the heartbreak of "Fourth of July"); if you've seen me on the subway this week, you've seen me bawling in public. Sufjan did it! It's his fault! 

It should be said it's also probably the closest we're ever gonna get to Sufjan ever coming out - if I ever hear the argument again that he just writes songs that are sometimes from the perspective of a female and that's why he's always talking about "male lovers" I'm going to smack that person with a rubber glove. Go read the lyrics to his new song "John My Beloved" and tell me that's not a whole bunch of gay sex going on. He says "I am a man" for god's sake.
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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I think someone will eventually ask Stevens a more direct question about a romantic relationship and he will actually answer it honestly, as opposed to skirting along the edges.