Description
Come on Feel the Illinoise is the fifth studio album by the American singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Sufjan Stevens, independently released on Asthmatic Kitty Records in July 2005, distributed by Sounds Familyre. Also released in Europe by Rough Trade. The album was written, produced, arranged, recorded, and mixed by Sufjan Stevens between the fall of 2004 and winter 2005. Most of the songs were recorded at The Buddy Project, Astoria, Queens, New York City.
It was adapted into a musical, Illinoise, in 2023 and, after playing smaller venues, opened at the St. James Theatre on Broadway and was nominated for four Tony Awards in 2024, winning for Best Choreography.
After the success and critical acclaim of the ‘Seven Swans‘ album, Stevens returns with ‘Illinois’, or ‘Illinoise’ as it says on the front sleeve, and his long term goal of writing and recording a set of albums that celebrates every state in the USA. We’ve already had ‘Michigan’ and now we have ‘Illinois’. This is delightfully quirky stuff and of course, supremely ambitious. Following the pattern of ‘Michigan’, here are a selection of songs that celebrate the history and culture of the state as well as a few of Stevens’ own observations and thoughts. Some of the best things about this album are the titles of the songs. Either they are extremely pretentious or Stevens is a man who likes to have a bit of fun. From the grand opening instrumental «Concerning The UFO Sightings Near Highfield, Illinois» to the closing «Out Of Egypt, Into The Great Laugh Of Mankind, And I Shake The Dirt From My Sandals As I Run», Stevens could win a Dove Award for the longest song titles in Christian music. Musically it’s as diverse as ever however Stevens’ banjo isn’t quite as all encompassing as it was on ‘Seven Swans’. Highlights for me are the melancholy of the touching «Casimir Pulaski Day» which finds Stevens emoting about the death of a friend. «They Are Night Zombies» is surprisingly soulful whilst «Come On Feel The Illinoise!» is not only a great pun but a fine song! Stevens continues to mystify and delight me with his music as he allows his faith to bubble up here and there in the midst of this unique and very challenging creative series. [Mike Rimmer, Cross Rhythms, August 2005]
What’s not cool about Sufjan Stevens?
His Turkish first name is so cool that it’s the only part of his moniker needed for his website’s URL. He’s an alum of one of the trippiest bands ever, the Danielson Familie. With Illinoise, he’s 1/25 done with his 50 States album project (his Michigan homeland came first).
If his 2004’s non-geographically thematic Seven Swans gave him household recognition in the indieground, Illinois crowns him the scene’s man of the hour. And if most arbiters of hip could give a toss for Stevens’ Christianity, they’re respecting his artistry.
Some of his brilliance comes from morphing his old Fam’s idiosyncrasies for broader consumption. The Danielson clan (Daniel Smith and wife Elin sing back-up and clap on “Decatur”) has mastered a sound that defies sell-out, but Stevens has built upon it considerably to nigh orchestral proportions. I count at least 19 different instruments Stevens plays himself. Then there’s the string quartet playing on six of the album’s 22 pieces.
That instrumental and compositional sophistication melds multiple genres until it becomes a singular thing. It’s as much about as the gossamer melancholy of the saddest singer-songwriters, the string jabs of the fiercest blaxploitation movie soundtrack, classical systems music at its most mesmeric, and Americana incapable of getting any more rustic.
Though Stevens poured research into his study of Lincoln State history, a deeply theological mindset pervades his songwriting. That said, the album hits an early emotional high mark with “John Wayne Gacy, Jr.”
With tender melody and sympathetically biographical lyrics, Stevens finds it in him to relate to the late pedophile-murderer by declaring that he has secrets under his floorboards, too. The heart is evil above all things, yes?
Other character studies (“Casimir Pulaski Day,” “The Tallest Man, The Broadest Shoulders”) and vignettes (“Chicago,” “The Seer’s Tower”) give the impression that Stevens work would translate easily to stage or screen. Maybe something could be staged at Illinois’ Cornerstone festival, as he seems to be giving it an elliptical namecheck by titling one of the set’s short instrumentals “Let’s hear that string part again, because I don’t think they heard it all the way out in Bushnell.”
As a multi-instrumentalist-arranger, Stevens’ senses of texture and layering Phil Spector and Brian Wilson’s Breach Boys prime. His songwriting rivals the insight of Larry Norman or Mark Heard. Swarthy good looks as boyish as his singing voice is sincere complete the picture. What chance does he stand among his kin in faith on Christian radio? Don’t turn blue holding your breath on that hope. Stevens’ literacy and manifold complexities would nonetheless befuddle a CCM public accustomed to, and likely ever seeking, simplicity in sentiments and sounds. Never mind his penchant for delightful choral harmonies and instantaneously indellible melodies.
That leaves Stevens more in a culturally prophetic role. People with no use for Jesus are enjoying how he uses the talents Christ has given him. Without preaching, his songs subtly, or more boldly, sermonize. Stevens is more than sharp enough to get away with it. [Jamie Lee Rake, The Phantom Tollbooth, 8/28/2005]
The first time you hear Sufjan Stevens it might bring to mind a Bob Dylan phrase that I am sure was in no way directed to Third Way’s editor, “Something is happening but you don’t know what it is, do you Mr. Jones.” Stevens belongs to a little triumvirate of artists, the others being the Danielson Famile and Half Handed Cloud; avant-garde performing songwriters who bring a slapstick musical humor to heavy Biblical themes. My friend Denison Witmer had recommended Stevens’ Michigan album as the album of the year a few years ago and when I added to the concert I’d just seen by the Danielson family I knew indeed something must be happening but I had no clue as to whether it was good, bad or brilliant.
Michigan was Stevens’ first album in an ambitious series that will cover all the States of the Union. Before the second in the series, Come On Feel the Illinoise, landed on my mat I’d seen Stevens’ live, which had given me a few big clues to what was going on even though the band wearing fluffy angel wings and little halos did nothing for my suspicions of madness. By the time of Illinoise, though, Witmer was not the only one waxing lyrical. Raving reviews were littering the media including Rolling Stone and he was the featured album of the month in Virgin Records across North America.
So what is happening Mr. Jones? Well, Stevens went to music school at Interlochen Arts Academy for a year when he was 14 to play oboe and study reed making. Musically, this is layered, original and simply cluttered with fascinating composition, full of orchestral interruptions, heavenly harmonies and melodies that lurk in the seeming chaos in order to sneak out and grab you with perpetually beautiful hooks.
He later studied a creative writing program at the New School in New York and there is a literary strength to the eccentricity of his quirk. Long song titles and fascinating song ideas indicate that what is happening is educated and crafted. ‘Illinoise’ has songs about Presidents, UFOs, child killers, friends dying of bone cancer and a two minute instrumental that has a 50 word title with four options as to what to call it.
Even more interesting in his story of intrigue is that Stevens is a Christian who has never even thought about going under the radar about it in his work or in interviews. Illinoise has God reaching down and pilgrims reaching up. God’s part in the deal is taken as real and as omnipresent as God can be. God is the one who holds things together and makes all things new but when friends pray for their sick friend at the “Tuesday night Bible study” (surely a unique line in the rock canon!) the friend still dies:
All the glory that the Lord has made
And the complications when I see His face
In the morning in the window
All the glory when he took our place
But he shook my shoulders, and he shook my face
And He takes and he takes and He takes…The clever word play captures the theme of the album in the lines, “I can’t explain the state that I’m in/ The state of my heart.” In one album of 22 songs that is a state of the state-of-Illinois-address he finds in his cast of characters and stories a reflection of his own state of human fallen-ness and redemption. I beg to differ with Rolling Stone’s reviewer who claimed the song about a clown who was a child killer “symbolizes nothing about American life except the existence of creative-writing workshops.” America wishes! And more importantly, the song is not about the state of a state serial killer but about the state of Stevens’ own heart. It is breathtaking.
As is the entire piece. Something is happening here and once you listen enough times to navigate the myriad of currents you can suddenly realize what it is the arrival of a new genius. [Steve Stockman, The Phantom Tollbooth, 2005]
> Apple Music (https://music.apple.com/us/album/illinois/328074546)
CD tracklist:
01. Concerning The UFO Sighting Near Highland, Illinois
02. The Black Hawk War, Or, How To Demolish An Entire Civilization And Still Feel Good About Yourself In The Morning, Or, We Apologise For The Inconvenience But You’re Going To Have To Leave Now, Or, “I Have Fought The Big Knives And Will Continue To Fight Them Until They Are Off Our Lands!”
03. Come On! Feel The Illinoise! (Part I: The World’s Columbian Exposition / Part II: Carl Sandburg Visits Me In A Dream)
04. John Wayne Gacy, Jr.
05. Jacksonville
06. A Short Reprise For Mary Todd, Who Went Insane, But For Very Good Reasons
07. Decatur, Or, Round Of Applause For Your Stepmother!
08. One Last “Whoo-Hoo!” For The Pullman
09. Chicago
10. Casimir Pulaski Day
11. To The Workers Of The Rock River Valley Region, I Have An Idea Concerning Your Predicament
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
Note: Released on both CD and 12-inch vinyl double LP by Asthmatic Kitty Records, with the vinyl edition housed in a double gatefold sleeve (i.e. triple panel). (The original US issue has Superman on the front cover. Due to a copyright infringement, the Superman was hidden with a sticker of 3 colored balloons prior on later re-issues.) Available at Bandcamp: https://sufjanstevens.bandcamp.com/album/illinois
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