Sufjan Stevens' Carrie & Lowell
- Author: Mayward, Joel
This astute and lyrical analysis paints Stevens's music in a profound new light
Sufjan Stevens' Carrie & Lowell
- Author: Mayward, Joel
Purchase product
This astute and lyrical analysis paints Stevens's music in a profound new light
About
Upon the release of Sufjan Stevens' seventh studio album, Carrie & Lowell, two opposing groups found themselves as strange bedfellows: the LGBTQIA+ community and American evangelical Christians. Both were united in praise for Stevens' beautifully melancholic music.
Critically acclaimed as one of the best albums of 2015, the elegiac and intimate record about the death of Sufjan's estranged mother reflects the musician's own paradoxical posture-Carrie & Lowell is both sacred and profane, Christian and queer, traditional and progressive, modern and postmodern.
Theologian and cultural critic Joel Mayward considers Carrie & Lowell as a mystical metamodern mementomori, Stevens' symphonic (as opposed to systematic) approach to the questions of mortality, meaning, and God. Fusing critical observations with personal narrative, Mayward examines the unique audience reception of Carrie & Lowell and the questions it raises: in a world of division, how might Stevens' affecting music act as a bridge of love between seemingly irreconcilable communities? As Carrie & Lowell reminds us of the painful truth that “we're all gonna die,” perhaps it also offers a glimpse of transcendence and hope on this side of death.
Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Intro: A Sun Came
- 1 Death with Dignity
- 2 Should Have Known Better
- 3 All of Me Wants All of You
- 4 Drawn to the Blood
- 5 Eugene
- 6 Fourth of July
- 7 The Only Thing
- 8 Carrie & Lowell
- 9 John My Beloved
- 10 No Shade in the Shadow of the Cross
- 11 Blue Bucket of Gold
- Outro: The Greatest Gift
- Bibliography
- Notes
Awards and reviews
This astute and lyrical analysis paints Stevens's music in a profound new light
