Our theme for the month of June is “Celebrities and Me.” Writers were asked to select and write about a celebrity with whom they feel some connection.

I am no Sufjan Stevens superfan. Before the concert in 2015, I’d only ever heard his most popular album, Illinois. But Calvin people are supposed to like Sufjan, so I bought a ticket without knowing anything about his newest release. When I began listening to Carrie & Lowell ahead of the concert, though, I was blown away. The album seemed to be singing my life.

That spring, I was experiencing my first serious bout of depression and anxiety and was hardly able to eat. Years of simmering mental health struggles had finally boiled over in my senior year. In painting and writing classes I tried to make art about how I felt but ended up staring, paralyzed, at blank canvases and empty Word files. Much of my time was spent in Health Services, filling out the umpteenth depression screener form, hugging myself so tightly my nails left marks on my skin. Carrie & Lowell put that kind of despair into music in ways I’d never known were possible.

Sufjan’s life story isn’t that similar to mine, but the album’s main theme is something we have in common: the abandonment and death of a parent. For me, those things happened simultaneously when I lost my dad to suicide in third grade. For Sufjan, the experience spanned years. His mother Carrie, who struggled with substance abuse and schizophrenia, left their family when he was just a year old. Before he turned eight, Sufjan spent three summers with her and her new husband, Lowell. Then he hardly saw her until her death when he was in his thirties.  

Carrie & Lowell is a masterpiece of lament as the singer wrestles with God, his past, and himself in his suffering. It is deeply autobiographical, yet explores grief and pain in a way that resonates to those who don’t share Sufjan’s experiences. This is the album that taught me how to appreciate songwriting. Disparate lyrical images are woven into a dense emotional tapestry, married to layers upon layers of sonic atmosphere. Hopeless phrases like “no reason to live” are whispered over cheerful synthesizer loops, then followed by discordant, echoing strings and choral “oohs” that burrow into you as they stretch for the last half-minute of a song.

“I don’t know where to begin,” Sufjan sings in the opening track, “Death With Dignity.” Blunt words like this mix with gentle, natural metaphors through the end of the song:

I forgive you mother, I can hear you, and I long to be near you
But every road leads to an end
Yes every road leads to an end

Your apparition passes through me, in the willows, five red hens
You’ll never see us again
You’ll never see us again

Stark statements like “You’ll never see us again” are what make this album cut so deeply to the heart of grief. Sufjan sings of the things his mother is missing out on: “My brother had a daughter. The beauty that she brings: illumination.” He cries out to God, “What did I do to deserve this?” He expresses rock-bottom dysfunction (“Fuck me I’m falling apart”) and dramatic despondency (“There’s only a shadow of me, in a manner of speaking I’m dead”). Still, he clings to traces of hope.

Despite its cheerful melody, “The Only Thing” speaks to what is keeping the singer from suicide. Biblical and mythological images make up these only things offering hope:

Faith and reason, I wasted my life playing dumb
Signs and wonders, sea lion caves in the dark
Blind faith, God’s grace, nothing else left to impart

In the middle of the song is a warm instrumental section that feels like morning sunshine on your skin, immediately after a description of dying in a Holiday Inn bathtub. During times of depression when I have most empathized with my dad’s decision to end his life, this song has put words to my dark, amorphous thoughts. In doing so, it weakens their power over me.

Scattered throughout the album are flashes of memories and images from childhood. Swimming lessons. The Oregon breeze. Where Carrie hid their cigarettes. This emphasis on the tenuous nature of memory was echoed at the Carrie & Lowell concert. Above the stage hung banners onto which were projected fleeting snippets of home movies. Family at the beach, kids frolicking in the backyard. Maybe the videos were all Sufjan’s, maybe not. It doesn’t matter. They felt like they could be mine.

Sufjan played straight through the entire album at the concert. I held it together until “Fourth of July,” whose instrumentals pulse with enveloping sorrow. Sufjan sings about the moments of his mother’s death, their last conversations as she was succumbing to stomach cancer. In an exchange between them, real or imaginary, Carrie asks:

Did you get enough love, my little dove
Why do you cry?
And I’m sorry I left, but it was for the best
Though it never felt right. 

And I wonder if my dad would ask me those things, if he could.

In the album version, Sufjan spends the final 60 seconds of “Fourth of July” repeating, “We’re all gonna die.” In the concert, this refrain was extended for at least five whole minutes. A spotlight above the stage that had been aimed at the band pivoted and began pointing to the crowd. Scanning the crowd, like a searchlight. Illuminating each and every person who was going to die. 

By this point in the concert I was sobbing. The pain of my dad’s death, the anxiety that seemed to be clawing its way out of my skin all semester was no longer trapped inside my body; it was all around me. It was in the air amidst the echoing instrumentals and dark refrain. Sufjan spoke into it, and in that crowd of spotlighted onlookers I was not alone.

In an interview with Pitchfork, Sufjan emphasized that in writing Carrie & Lowell, he wanted to work through and honor his experiences. “At worst, these songs probably seem really indulgent,” he said. “At their best, they should act as a testament to an experience that’s universal: Everyone suffers; life is pain; and death is the final punctuation at the end of that sentence. So deal with it.”

I remember what Ken Heffner said about the album as he introduced Sufjan at the concert: “Sufjan Stevens has given us a gift.” As someone who primarily makes art about my own experience, I cling to that image of the gift of one’s story. 

This album has helped me to live my grief. It’s given me space to cry, whether I’m feeling alone in a strange city or dreading yet another Father’s Day. It invites me to name the sorrow, and to fight for the strength to face another day. Thank you, Sufjan, for that gift. 

Laura Sheppard Song

Laura graduated from Calvin in 2015 with a degree in art and writing. She lives in Toronto, Ontario, with her husband Josh and dog Rainy. She works as an IT support analyst and enjoys painting, rock climbing, and exploring the city.