Monthly Archives: January 2006

Illinoise – A Music Review of Sufjan Stevens’ CD

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This is a great album. I have put off purchasing this album for over six months, but when it made number 4 on the top 50 albums list on my favorite radion station XPN-88.5 (which you can listen to on the web), I decided to make the investment. I am very glad I did. It is the best album I have purchased in the last year, and I purchase many albums (or should I say CDs).

But one of the song’s titles gave me pause. It was John Wayne Gacy, Jr. I mean what can anyone say about such a horrible man – a heartless serial killer, who thankfully has gone on to face his Maker. I was leary of this song to say the least, but when I heard the song the first time, it brought tears to my eyes. It is a deceptively simple, yet hauntingly beautiful melody, and the words, well, you can read them yourself, They are printed below.

Just let me say that I was struck by how, early on, Stevens was able to humanize this monster, if only just a little. We see Gacy as a little boy, son of an alcoholic father, and we hear of his sense of humor and likeability. And then Stevens strikes just the right chords in portraying this man’s savagery. The lines “Oh the dead – 27 people – Even more, they were boys, with their cars, summer jobs – Oh my God -Are you one of them?” are painful and poignant.

And as if that were not enough, the final lines are an indictment of all of us folks who are obviously much better people than Gacy could have ever been. He sings ” And in my best behavior I am really just like him. Look beneath the floor boards for the secrets I have hid.”

Of course our secrets are not as terrible or horrific as Gacy’s, but that’s not the point, is it? All I’m saying is that it makes you think, and in this world, anything that makes you pause for a moment and contemplate the nature of humanity and our own natures is a good thing.

I highly recommend this album and especially this moving song. Allow me to quote one more reviewer, this one just about this particular song – Michael Metivier, who writes

On the flipside of this US Mint issued 50 States coin is “John Wayne Gacy, Jr.”, which focuses on one particular Illinois native, in this case the notorious serial killer. The challenge of writing and pulling off this song is monumental for wholly different reasons than the rest of Illinois. How does one create an affecting piece of art centered on a cultural figure so extreme and reviled without being obvious/trite, or (even worse) sounding sympathetic to his actions by the plain fact of writing a song about him? The answer is “John Wayne Gacy, Jr.”: horrifying, tragic, and deeply sad without proselytizing. Who needs a song to tell them that murdering twenty-seven people is wrong? Instead, Stevens makes you feel it, describes the events in ways that strip away sensation and make you care, rather than numb, “Twenty-seven people, even more / They were boys / With their cars, summer jobs / Oh my God”. His voice is broken up on the phrase, going up into falsetto, as the weight of the situation overcomes both singer and song. The clincher is the final verse which begins, “And in my best behavior / I am really just like him”, echoing Mother Theresa when she was asked how and why she could devote her entire life’s work to the poor – because she was aware of her own potential for evil.

Sufjan Stevens – John Wayne Gacy, Jr.
(written by: Sufjan Stevens)From the album “Illinoise”

His father was a drinker and his mother cried in bed
Folding John Wayne’s t-shirts when the swingset hit his head
The neighbors they adored him
For his humor and his conversation

Look underneath the house there
Find the few living things, rotting fast, in their sleep
Oh the dead
27 people
Even more, they were boys, with their cars, summer jobs
Oh my God
Are you one of them?

He dressed up like a clown for them
With his face paint white and red
And on his best behavior
In a dark room on the bed he kissed them all

He’d kill ten thousand people
With a slight of his hand, running far, running fast to the dead
He took off all their clothes for them
He put a cloth on their lips, quiet hands, quiet kiss on the mouth

And in my best behavior
I am really just like him
Look beneath the floor boards
For the secrets I have hid

a poem for epiphany – january 6

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today is the 12th day of christmas – epiphany, and in honor of this, here is a wonderful poem on the subject of "the wise men."

T. S. Eliot's Journey of The Magi

'A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.'
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.

Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wine-skins.
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.

All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death?
There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt.
I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.