Here’s a thought experiment: what does Holland, Mich., sound like? Not what you would hear if you visited — cars, people’s voices, maybe boats on Lake Macatawa — but the sound of the place’s essence. How would you represent it? It’s a heady question: What does any place actually “sound” like? How can we separate our personal experiences of a place from their objective qualities? It’s an impossible task, and it seems like an exercise in futility to even try. Unless you’re Sufjan Stevens.
Holland? It’s a soft, high-timbered guitar strummed over bare piano notes. It’s an acoustic guitar, punctuating the song with quant, rural flair. It’s also more than that: It’s the story of brief affairs, new lovers, night swims and hot, hot summer days.
In the album Michigan, certainly, there are songs about Michigan, but there are also songs about how to reckon with the contradictory joy and pain of coming of age. These are songs about the beauty of place, of environment and of nature as much as they are songs about the history, stories and Stevens’ personal experiences with the state.
This is Michigan’s key trick: Pair extremely sad and slow songs with musical representations of the staggering beauty of the Great Lakes State. The impact is monumental, justifying the inherent contradiction between the universal and personal portraits of these places. Sure, my idea of what Holland, Mich., sounds like differs from what Stevens thinks Holland sounds like. I, unfortunately, have little nostalgia for the place apart from brief pass-throughs of its windmilled streets. But the point Stevens is trying to make — that even in times of great sadness, the sheer loveliness of the places he’s visited brings him comfort — is universal. His lyrics are not cheery; they tell stories of economic devastation, empty factories and childhood abandonment. But no matter the memories we hold of the state, the music of the album brings on the same feeling of awe and wonder as seeing its sites for yourself: Tahquamenon Falls, the Upper Peninsula or Crooked River.
This melding of the personal and universal is what makes Michigan the all-time “place” album. Many would counter this by citing Stevens’ follow-up to Michigan, 2005’s album Illinois, as a superior work. The point is valid; Illinois is wonderful, reaching highs of its own through lush soundscapes and detailed lyrical storytelling. But for all its virtues, Illinois doesn’t have what makes Michigan so special: Its impressionistic capture of the state’s natural beauty. Unlike Illinois, Michigan brings upbeat melodies to its drab subject matter. Here, there are wind chimes, glockenspiels and all manner of whimsical instrumentation. They sound so good it makes you ache.
So why the sonic and lyrical dissonance? The answer is the glory of the land. Michigan is special because Michigan, the state, is special. Some of Michigan’s tracks can be best described as modified hymns, especially those like “Oh God, Where Are You Now? (In Pickerel Lake? Pigeon? Marquette? Mackinaw?)” and “Sleeping Bear, Sault Saint Marie” that shine with gospel influence. Stevens calls upon God in these songs, but it’s not a Christian god: It’s the indomitable power of Mother Nature. An assertion like this likely sounds hyperbolic to a non-Midwesterner. To these people, I’ll issue a challenge: Drive all the way to the top of the Lower Peninsula. Find a lakeshore town — Charlevoix, Petoskey, Cheboygan or any other. Look at the forests. Breathe in the clear air. Gaze at the endless water, the unpolluted night sky and the unbelievable topography. Then tell me you can’t recognize where Stevens draws his strength in songwriting. With a muse like that, how could the album be anything less than beautiful?
There was a point in my life when I woke up every morning sad. My alarm would go off and I would leave my bed, reach for my phone and play Michigan from front to back. I washed my face to “Flint (For The Unemployed And Underpaid),” brushed my teeth to “All Good Naysayers, Speak Up! Or Forever Hold Your Peace!” and dressed myself to “For the Widows in Paradise, For the Fatherless in Ypsilanti.” The latter half of the album was reserved for the drive to school or work, depending on if it were a weekend or weekday, and by the time I got wherever I needed to be, the album would be finished. When what needed to be done was done, I’d go home, go to sleep and wake to another morning and another listen.
Even then, I recognized this habit as a bit melodramatic. I was trying to romanticize this section of my life; I was sad and I needed a sad soundtrack to accompany me through the days. But looking back, there was more to my morning ritual than just catharsis. There are plenty of wonderful sad albums to listen to — ever sat down to Elliott Smith’s Either/Or? Jeff Buckley’s Grace? Truly devastating works — and while Michigan is sad, it’s much more than that. Michigan is full of optimism because the places it draws upon, while sometimes broken, are also full of undeniable beauty and awe.
Each morning, “Vito’s Ordination Song” would close, and I too was transported to all the wondrous sights I had seen and what those had brought me. Things were hard, and yet? I still had Michigan, both the state and its musical tribute. I still had art and I still had hope.
Daily Arts Contributor Grace Sielinski can be reached at gsielins@umich.edu.