Primo Luglio 1975; di fronte alla porta di casa il Sig. Stevens nota un neonato ancora in fasce dentro una cassetta del latte e in quel momento capisce che la sua famiglia, già in condizioni economiche difficili, dovrà farsi ancora più forza per accogliere quella piccola creatura a cui darà il nome di Sufjan, mitico guerriero armeno.
Il Sig. Stevens allora non poteva sapere che quel bambino cresciuto come un figlio molti anni dopo avrebbe trasferito tutto l'amore e l'affetto ricevuti dalla famiglia adottiva in delicate composizioni musicali.
Greetings from Michigan è un piccolo goiello da custodire segretamente, dove le melodie e gli scenari sonori disegnano paesaggi che vivono in un limbo tra fantasia e realtà lasciandoci perduti in un luogo dai colori opachi e dai contorni sfumati.
Come se Bacharach avesse passato una serata in compagnia degli Stereolab (All Good Naysayers, Speak Up! Or Forever Hold Your Peace!), o gli Yo La Tengo improvvisassero una jam session con i Kings of Convenience (Holland), le quindici tracce di questo album soprendono per la loro delicatezza, impreziosite da arrangiamenti di banjo e xilofono (Tahquamenon Falls) e sognanti aperture di oboe e corno (Detroit, Lift Up Your Weary Head).
Il risultato è un pop acustico d'autore di gran qualità dove Sufjan con voce sospesa, a volte appena accennata, ci conduce tra melodie liquide e astratte, calde e palpitanti.
Il suo progetto sembra piuttosto ambizioso; dedicare un album per ogni stato americano, in attesa delle prossime 49 uscite godiamoci i fiumi e la natura del Michigan.
Elenco tracce e testi
01 Flint (For The Unemployed And Underpaid) (00:00)
It's the same outside
Driving to the riverside
I pretend to cry
Even if I cried alone
I forgot the start
Use my hands to use my heart
Even if I died alone
Even if I died alone
Since the first of June
Lost my job
And lost my room
I pretend to try
Even if I tried alone
I forgot the part
Use my hands to use my heart
Even if I died alone
Even if I died alone
Even if I died alone
Even if I died alone
Even if I died
04 Say Yes! To M!ch!gan! (00:00)
Demonstrate I was
raised from the start
By a priest and
the maid on the part.
Still know what
to wear on my back:
Michigan!
Ponshewaing!
Cadillac!
If I ever meant to go away
I was raised, I was reaised
In the place, in the place.
Still I often think of going back
To the farms, to the farms
Golden arms, golden arms
start to remind me.
If the lakes took
the place of the sea.
If the cars drove
themselves, way to be!
Opposite the trains moving in
Rivers run interstate, Michigan!
Still I never meant to go away
I was raised, I was raised
In the place, in the place.
Still I often think of going back
To the farms, to the farms
Golden arms, golden arms.
Tried to change the
Made in Michigan
I was raised, I was raised
In the place, in the place,
part to remind me
05 The Upper Peninsula (00:00)
I live in America
With a pair of Payless shoes
The upper penisula
And the television news
And I've seen my wife
At the K-Mart
In strange ideas
We live apart
I live in a trailer home
With a snow mobile, my car
The window is broken out
And the interstate is far
I drove all night
To find my child
In strange ideas
He's been revived
In strange ideas
In stranger times
I've no idea
What's right sometimes
I lost my mind
I lost my life
I lost my job
I lost my wife
07 Holland (00:00)
All the time we spent in bed
Counting miles before we set
Fall in love and fall apart
Things will end before they start
Sleeping on Lake Michigan
Factories and marching bands
Lose our clothes in summer time
Lose ourselves to lose our minds
In the summer heat, I might
09 Romulus (00:00)
Once when our mother called
She had a voice of last year's cough
We passed around the phone
Sharing a word without growing up
When my turn came
I was ashamed
When my turn came
I was ashamed
Once when we moved away
She came to Romulus for a day
Her Chevrolet broke down
We prayed it never be fixed or be found
We touched her hair
We touched her hair
We touched her hair
We touched her hair
When she had her last child
Once when she had some boyfriend somewhile
She moved away quite far
Our Grampa bought us a new VCR
We watched it all night
We grew up in spite of it
We watched it all night
We grew up in spite of it
We saw her once last fall
Our Grampa died in a hospital gown
She didn't seem to care
She smoked in her room and coloured her hair
I was ashamed
I was ashamed of her
I was ashamed
I was ashamed of her
I was ashamed
Of her
13 Oh God, Where Are You Now? (In Pickeral Lake? Pigeon? Marquette? Mackinaw?) (00:00)
16 Marching Band (00:00)
One dark day the trees began a trumpet sound,
trumpet sound
We sat listening patiently, the sky was near
and i felt the trembling motion
we ran out to see the future, from the ground
from the ground
from the ground
from the ground
people died and people risen everywhere
We held hands and made a circle
quietly from the ground
quietly from the ground
We returned and set the table, by the door
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