Illinois (MP3)
Like the self-proclaimed 'Spiderman' who climbed Chicago's Sears Tower with no harness, Sufjan Stevens scales dusty prairies, steel factories, and two hundred years of history in the second installment of his 50 State Project, ILLINOIS, a 22-track anthematic tone poem to The Prairie State. Stevens weaves variegated musical styles (jazz, funk, pop, folk, and Rodgers and Hammerstein-like flourishes) and the textures of 25 instruments into a tapestry of persons and places famous, infamous, iconic and anonymous. Invoking the muse of poet Carl Sandburg, 'Illinois' ushers in trumpets on parade, string quartets, female choruses and ambient piano scales arranged around Stevens' emerging falsetto.
| Tracklisting | |
| Disk | 1 | |
| 1 | Concerning the UFO sighting near Highland, Illinois |
| 2 | The Black Hawk War, or, How To Demolish An Entire Civilization and Still Feel Good About Yourself in the Morning, or, We Apologize for the Inconvenience But You're Going To Have To Leave Now, or, "I Have Fought The Big Knives And Will Continue to Fight Th |
| 3 | Come On! Feel the Illinoise! Part I: The World's Columbian Exposition Part II: Carl Sandburg Visits Me In A Dream |
| 4 | John Wayne Gacy, Jr. |
| 5 | Jacksonville |
| 6 | A short reprise for Mary Todd, who went insane, but for very good reasons |
| 7 | Decatur, or, Round of Applause for Your Step-Mother! |
| 8 | One last "Whoo-hoo!" for the Pullman |
| 9 | Chicago |
| 10 | Casimir Pulaski Day |
| 11 | To The Workers of The Rock River Valley Region, I have an idea concerning your predicament, and it involves an inner tube, bath mats, and 21 able-bodied men |
| 12 | The Man of Metropolis Steals Our Hearts |
| 13 | Prairie Fire That Wanders About |
| 14 | A conjunction of drones simulating the way in which Sufjan Stevens has an existential crisis in the Great Godfrey Maze |
| 15 | The Predatory Wasp of The Palisades Is Out To Get Us |
| 16 | They Are Night Zombies!! They Are Neighbors!! They Have Come Back From the Dead!! Ahhhh! |
| 17 | Let's hear that string part again, because I don't think they heard it all the way out in Bushnell |
| 18 | In This Temple As in The Hearts of Man For Whom He Saved The Earth |
| 19 | The Seer's Tower |
| 20 | The Tallest Man, the Broadest Shoulders Part I: The Great Frontier Part II: Come to Me Only With Playthings Now |
| 21 | Riffs and Variations on a single note for Jelly Roll, Earl Hines, Louis Armstrong, Baby Dodds, and the King of Swing, to name a few |
| 22 | Out of Egypt, into the Great Laugh of Mankind, and I shake the dirt from my sandals as I run |
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