Sufjan Stevens’ musical memoir to Michigan has transformed him into a renowned singer/songwriter, colored by imagination.

BY Daphne Carr
Photography By Denny Renshaw

In the faint grey afternoon, when winter clouds cover the sky, some kids may want to come in from outdoors. Some may watch television, others may hunt for snacks or play games. Sufjan Stevens might have rolled a racecar around the board a bit, but would inevitably race to the oboe to push out a tune, or sit down to plunk out a melody before the family got together for dinner.

Those afternoons, spent in the dismal 1980s Midwest, formed the basis for his 2003 sleeper masterpiece, Greetings From Michigan: The Great Lake State. The album’s 15 songs and faded tour book cover create an overwhelming portrait of a labor-torn, disheveled, and humbled America. With his lilting voice, more wistful even than Sam Prekop, and a makeshift ensemble of horns, strings, sleigh bells, organs and banjo, Sufjan still managed to be, in his own words, “understated.”

The ordinary people populating Michigan came from Stevens’ workshops at the New School in Manhattan. “I found myself writing about these characters and started to talk to friends from Michigan about the state, of places I’ve never been to and their experiences.”

The separation of families, remorse for past sacrifice and longing for freedom from future woes are threads running throughout Stevens’ narrative. It’s as if he captured the musical residue of the American dream. “My father is Lithuanian,” Stevens said, “and his father put great emphasis on being American. He didn’t teach them the language, he moved them to Detroit.”

Stevens’ homage to Motor City bubbles in “9/8,” a call-and-response peppered with reminiscences of Windsor Park! Henry Ford! A Tigers Game! - all together sounding like a chipper 1960s auto ad. Here is the vision of a young man who looks at ruins and sees greatness, who can still hear the rhythms that gave rise to some of the greatest pop of all time.

“Several generations away from that experience, a lot of people like me might feel like nomads. As we get older, having resented our hometowns and liberated ourselves to the city, we become the typical, sentimental Midwesterner.”

So much of my understanding of Michigan was colored by the imagination. I went back home after all of it and was really upset by that, let down by that. I hope that people won’t think that it was something I did to manipulate them.”

Stevens is a full time graphic designer in New York City. His job is to cull together illustrations for children’s textbooks. The meticulous and precise cultivation of images is also the trademark of his music, which until the release of Michigan had been something of a hobby. Together with his stepfather, he runs Asthmatic Kitty, a label that features many of the artists Stevens mentions as his influences.

With the critical praise for the album, a Rough Trade overseas deal and increased tours have turned Stevens from the “indulgent” solo artist of his first album, Sun King, to the leader of his very own Michigan Militia Band and Choir, a hodgepodge group of friends and collaborators who flesh out his guitar and banjo arrangements. The problem with expansion, he says, is that he’ll have to buy his own instruments. “I don’t own a piano, an acoustic guitar, a banjo or any of the instruments, really, but I have collected them from friends determined not to learn to play them. Now that I’m touring, I have to call everyone and ask permission to take their instruments on tour with me.”

In the States, and on Michigan, Stevens has benefited greatly from a musical relationship with the members of the Danielson Famile. The breathy, atmospheric nature of Stevens’ performance serves as a humble prelude before the Famile’s raucous onslaught of joyful noise, and in anticipation of leader Daniel Smith in particular. “His voice is so overpowering - totally unique and the opposite of how I sing,” said Stevens.

Stevens has subbed for a Famile member on occasion, and has recorded his next album, the more acoustic-guitar driven introspection Seven Swans, for the Sounds Familyre label. Swans’ name, from the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, redemption imagery and Hallelujah! choruses are an explicit move towards the type of faith-affirming music known to the Famile. But Stevens’ won’t call it Christian. “I don’t talk about faith in public forum interviews. The term ‘Christian artist’ is so deadly, that for someone like me - I should stay away from it. There’s so much history in that term. It’s such a burden.”

The collage of worlds that Stevens put together in Michigan shares two themes - betrayal and hope. On “Oh God, Where Are You Now?” a barely there voice, backed by piano and soprano harmonies, asks ‘The Devil is hard on my face again / The world is a hundred to one again / Would the righteous still remain?” And you get the sense that this is no idle question, but one that Seven Swans might only begin to answer.