I
was listening to music in my car the other day. This isn’t some new revelation;
most people know I love listening to music in my car. In fact, I almost can’t
drive unless I have my music—it’s as important to me as having the keys or
turning on the headlights when it’s dark. I have music for the spring, music
for a summer day, and even music for the night. And then I have the music that
is a religious experience.
The way I tear up when I listen to
Sufjan Stevens isn’t natural. It is, after all, just music. Right? False. Music
is one of any number of things that can be sacred to a person, in a similar way
scriptures are sacred to the religious (not to sound sacrilegious, as I myself
and very religious), because of the message it contains, the way it makes your
soul swell up. Not to say that there aren’t any Christian undertones to the
work of Sufjan (there’s the mention of ‘The Great I Am” in Decatur, or the
blatant religious activities mentioned in Casimir Pulaski Day), but he’s not
Christian rock and there’s something about his lyrics that makes me cry when I
listen to him. He’s the only friend I need as I speed down the highway and
ponder, contemplate, pray, over my life and where I’m going, what I’m doing.
It’s the intimacy of the moment, the
sincerity in which he sings those words, those personal stories. It’s not
everyone who can do that and not sound unbearably awkward or whiny. Instead you
can relate, it causes you to think. It’s also something you can’t share with
others, no matter how badly you want to—part of it is fear that anyone else who
listens won’t find it sacred as you do, and, instead, make fun of it. The other
part is that no one will ever experience something the same exact way that you
do. But you can relate, attempt to empathize in our own perfectly imperfect
human ways. And although when we listen oh so carefully, and we believe “this
guy knows me, he really knows me. How is he in my head?” the painful truth is
that he doesn’t, he isn’t, but the comforting thought is that we are able to
relate somehow. The beauty of art is that you can take that special something
created out of an emotion, a situation, and apply it to yourself. That’s how
beautiful things should be, how they should work on a proper level.
When Sufjan sings “I made a lot of
mistakes, all things know/go/grow,” he’s made mistakes different than mine. In
too much he muses “If I was a different man… maybe I talk too much, maybe I
talk too fast,” I’m reminded of my own self musings. What if there were nine of
me, so I could live nine lives and do all that I wanted to do? Act, bake,
write, be an astronaut, a secret lover. When in Futile Devices he
heartbreakingly reflects about his deep relationship with his friend who is
like a brother, something he can’t put into words without feeling dumb, he’s
not singing about my friendship, but I can relate, and learn, and have a
catharsis and use his perfectly imperfect futile words to describe my own
story, to catch the feeling of my life. It’s because of this that his music is
sacred, even if that might sound dumb. But what can I do? Words are, after all,
futile devices. Yet I make do, and do just fine. As futile as words might be,
at least they still connect.
