the Fourth of July

- July 04, 2019

Sufjan Stevens, the guy who's in tune with the inner working of the heart, has a song for us this independence day: "Fourth of July", off of his excellent 2015 album Carrie & Lowell. The album itself is a reflection on Sufjan's turbulent childhood, with images of his mother dying her hair and smoking cigarettes in the bathroom, leaving him at the video store when he was 5, day drinking, and other similar scenes filling the contents of the record. In this context, "Fourth of July", a song about her death, finds itself placed right in the middle of the album- constituting the heart of the Carrie & Lowell project. The song is carried by a hauntingly beautiful piano melody that seems to sweep right through you- delicate, yet strong in the sense that it all but demands a wide-eyed introspection of some sorts.

Here, Sufjan encounters his emotions, a vivid imagination, and the natural world as he retells the story of his mothers death. He imagines his mothers voice in each verse, inserting her commentary after each detail Sufjan recounts: "The evil it spread/ like a fever ahead/ it was night when you died/ my firefly", Sufjan sings, only to imagine his mothers reply as "well you do enough talk/ my little hawk/ why do you cry?/tell me what did you learn/ from the Tillamook burn/ Or the Fourth of July?/ We're all gonna die".

the Tillamook Burn, 1933

Sufjan's frequent references to fire, explosions, or burning things in general (the Tillamook burn was a large forest fire in Oregon) are handy in more ways than one: we all know that we are going to die, and that reality alone should propel us to live a life that is meaningful. We can destroy those around us, destroy the world like the forest fire or the Tillamook Burn, or we can go out beautifully, with celebration for a life well lived in a spirit of generosity and love to others, like the beauty we find in the sky on the 4th of July. Important stuff to remember.