Sufjan Stevens
Sufjan Stevens
Sufjan Stevensis an American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. He first came to wider recognition with the 2000 album, A Sun Came, which was released on the Asthmatic Kitty label he co-founded with his stepfather. He is perhaps best known for his 2005 album, Illinois, which hit number one on the Billboard Top Heatseekers chart, and for the single "Chicago" from that album...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionMusician
Date of Birth1 July 1975
CountryUnited States of America
hard
It's hard to say if actual places really affect the way you write.
assuming people raised stories
I've read in a couple stories that I was raised Episcopalian, but that's not true. I think that's just people assuming things. In some ways, I wish I was raised Episcopalian. I was kind of raised hodgepodge.
helps history inclined maybe naturally sing
I am not naturally inclined to history or geography - maybe that's why I like to sing about it, because it helps me remember.
believe everyday mundane music self spiritual
I believe that music is a spiritual language. My everyday self is pretty mundane and boring, but when I'm making music it allows for me to communicate a kind of transcendence that I can't communicate otherwise.
beliefs church confess entire hard ideologies people personal political reconcile within
It's hard to reconcile my personal beliefs with an entire institution like the Church or the Republicans. Or with people within those political persuasions who have such different ideologies but confess the same things I confess spiritually.
art music
You know, I don't think my music is important, I don't think it's changing the world, I don't think it's art. I just think it's music. It is what it is.
central work
Audacity is central to everything I do. A lot of times I think my work is about just seeing if I can get away with it.
answer asked becomes entire music musicians mysteries packaged process trying understand word
Musicians are often asked to answer for an entire culture, or for an entire movement. It's a process of commodification. It becomes packaged and summarized in a word like 'emo' or 'grunge'... or 'folk music.' I think that's just language itself, trying to understand the mysteries of the world.
experience fully involved sensory
It's really about a sensory experience and getting fully involved and fully entrenched in the pageantry of Illinois.
experience fully involved sensory
It's really about a sensory experience and getting fully involved and entrenched in the pageantry of Illinois,
basis exhaustion focusing folk forms interested maybe music patriotic people rock songs strong wonder
I do wonder if people aren't just interested in music that has meaning, ... Because there's been kind of an exhaustion through forms and genres, like rock and electronica, doing away with melodies, and I think maybe we're always interested in songs - folk songs, hymns. Whatever. Patriotic songs with strong melodies. It's kind of the basis of what I'm doing now, just focusing on traditional songwriting.
real broken car
I remember Detroit feeling really unsafe, feeling scared a lot. Our house was broken into, our car was stolen, we had to get a watchdog, we would get beat up in the street, I had my bike stolen. There was just a lot of real anarchy on the streets and sidewalks.
dog thinking sick
I think of the saddest thing I can and then add a sick dog to that. If I think of a sick dog from the beginning, I just stop there.
beautiful philosophical reality
I feel like the Internet needs to be disarmed in some way. There needs to be a philosophical undermining of the Internet. We take it too seriously and too literally. For a reference we go to Wikipedia, which is full of inaccuracies and misinformation. It's kind of beautiful - it's all the product of imagination; it's not reality at all.