Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Yes, I've gotten way off track blogging lately, for various reasons. But I was struck by all the negativity in my last few posts; not that awful music isn't funny (it is) but I don't think complaining about what's bad really gets across how much I love the things I love. So I'm going to start periodically writing about my honest to goodness, hands down, top 25 favorite songs of all songs, one at a time. Because I want to, and because it's so, so easy for me to be passionate about them.
The summer of 2005 was an interesting one for me. My grandfather had died at the end of May, which left me in a complete emotional tailspin. So I was (as usual?) mid-self revolution, only instead of the relentless crashes and booms I was used to accompanying change in my life, everything seemed to be falling away and evolving remarkably peacefully. I'd ended a relationship that I'd long been unhappy in, moved into a sublet off of Main Street in Amherst, and was having myself a (badly needed) charmingly carefree summer on the outside of the struggling I was doing underneath it.
At Quabbin, Summer '05
Renee and I had only just begun our legendary friendship the spring prior, and spent most of our time together drinking jugs of Berkshire Brewery beer, listening to bluegrass, and going on lots of long, aimless drives through all the old hill towns and farms. I had only just acquired my marvelous Betsy from the Hampshire Bike Exchange and rode her down to the center of town almost every day. The lot of us who stayed behind that summer when all the students went back home would creep into the woods near Hampshire College late at night and skinny dip in the lake there. When we weren't playing late night Scrabble, my roommates and I would have parties that almost always ended with everyone on the playground behind our apartment, playing Hide And Seek and running around like children, followed by a morning after breakfast at the Lone Wolf. I was lazily "seeing" an old friend of mine from early teenage-hood who had grown up to be a touring slam poet, and he'd take me to drag shows and hipster beer bars from time to time. He was a decent kisser and a heavenly hugger. Everything was beautiful and nothing was serious- an environment I badly needed in order to cope with my grandfather's death. And it was during this time that I really got into Sufjan Stevens' music, and first fell in love with "Concerning the UFO Sighting Near Highland, IL."
"Come On Feel the Illinoise" isn't my favorite Sufjan album by far, but this song stuck out to me immediately and has effectively nested itself in my heart forever. Not only because of the memories surrounding the particular time in my life where this song took a front seat, but also because it's beautifully crafted and downright genius. The Philip Glass-y piano throughout is mystical, sparce and beautiful, but it's the lyrics (as usual) that really took me over.
"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."
There's a passage in the Bible that talks about an incarnation sent from God that will come down from the sky as a sign to the faithful, surrounded by three stars and the faces of lions, and I've always assumed that Sufjan was invoking that with this song. The idea that what contemporary humans regard as alien (UFO's, moving lights in the sky) could actually be an incarnation of faith meant for a faithless world is mind blowing and something I could think about for hours. How many times have we explained away our miracles as science fiction, in our heated rush to seem intellectual and impossible to fool? Is the price of seeming gullible and simple to the world worth the gifts that faith can give?
That summer, underneath all the easy, child-like days and the warm, simple nights, I wrestled with the loss of my grandfather every single moment. His faith was the current that kept him moving and alive his entire life. Every night I looked to the sky and hoped I'd see him; in the spirit of three stars or in any way he'd come back to me.
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