A track by track analysis Of the Sufjan Stevens album Illinois. Part music playlist, part travel guide, part history lesson. The stories of people, places, and songs to be found on some famous routes. Currently travelling virtually on Route 66, Highway 101 and Interstate 95. (maybe a road map). Jul 24, 2015 - In Photos: Sufjan Stevens makes a memorable appearance at Eaux. Few tunes from the existing “The 50 States” albums, Michigan and Illinois.
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. An engrossing musical road trip, 'Illinois' takes you through ghost towns, grain mills, hospital rooms, and the City of Broad Shoulders, with guest appearances by a poet, a president, a serial murderer, UFOs, Superman, the goat that cursed the Cubs, and Decatur's famous Chickenmobile. Sufjan 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.
![Map Map](http://i.imgur.com/l0uXDbV.jpg)
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Contact / help Track Name: Concerning the UFO Sighting Near Highland, Illinois When the revenant came down, we couldn’t imagine what it was In the spirit of three stars the alien thing that took its form Then to Lebanon, oh God The flashing at night, the sirens grow and grow Oh, history involved itself Mysterious shade that took its form Or what it was, incarnation, three stars Delivering signs and dusting from their eyes Track Name: Come On! Feel the Illinoise! (Part I: The World's Columbian Exposition — Part II: Carl Sandburg Visits Me in a Dream) Oh, great intentions I’ve got the best of interventions But when the ads come I think about it now In my infliction Entrepreneurial condition Take us to glory I think about it now Cannot conversations cull united nations? If you’ve got the patience, celebrate the ancients Cannot all creation call it celebration? Or united nation, put it to your head Oh, great white city I’ve got the adequate committee Where have your walls gone? I think about it now Chicago, in fashion The soft drinks, expansion Oh, Columbia From Paris, incentive Like Cream of Wheat invented The Ferris wheel Oh, great intentions Covenant with the imitation Have you no conscience? I think about it now Oh, God of Progress Have you degraded or forgot us?
Where have your laws gone? I think about it now Ancient hieroglyphic or the South Pacific Typically terrific, busy and prolific Classical devotion, architect promotion Lacking in emotion, think about it now Chicago, the New Age But what would Frank Lloyd Wright say? Oh, Columbia Amusement or treasure These optimistic pleasures Like the Ferris wheel Cannot conversations cull united nations?