First, Sufjan Stevens gave us a contemplative look at some of the problems inherent in the Christmas holiday (materialism v. gratitude, etc.) via Volume 6 in his Silver & Gold compilation, Gloria. Next, Stevens seemingly sought to resolve those problems by dismantling Christmas and examining it under a microscope on Volume 7, I Am Santa’s Helper. On Volume 8 of Silver & Gold, Stevens has rebuilt his Polar Express, into a spaceship Christmas sleigh (that apparently, doubles as a Gundam Wing character?) that he has launched into the orbit of angels on a spiritual, soul-searching, Christmas Infinity Voyage.
Musically, things have changed a bit from Stevens’ previous
material. The final three volumes of Silver
& Gold were recorded during and after the Sufjan Stevens musical
revolution, which saw him adopt a significantly more electronic sound leading
up to the 2010 releases of All Delighted
People and The Age of Adz. This
transformation saw Stevens adding a myriad of synthesized sounds and auto-tuned
vocals to his more traditional folk instrumentation and the Christmas music he
produced after this turning point is no exception. This journey into more
unfamiliar musical territory for Stevens is reflected in the spirit of Volume 8, Christmas Infinity Voyage.
The instrumental experimentation on this album finds Stevens launching into the
heavens with soaring electronics, spacey synthesizers and otherworldly vocals.
This musical outlet seems to have been exactly what Stevens needed at this
point in his Christmas comprehension quest. By pushing the sound of his music
into the cosmos and away from the human anxieties of Earth, he has seemingly been
afforded the opportunity to become unburdened by the mundane and the secular.
He now floats freely, distantly, above it all, with the fresh vantage point of
the same celestial beings that may have witnessed the first Christmas. This
change in musical direction mirrors a change in Stevens’ opinion on
Christmas itself. This voyage into “infinity” seems to have set him on the path
toward understanding the point of it all.
There are basically two different, interweaving, stories
being told on this album. The first is through a series of songs (all from the
traditional “Silent Night bracket”) that are almost exclusively concerned with
heavenly entities spreading the word about the birth of the Christian savior. Stevens plays these songs as if he’s right
there among the stars and angels, perhaps, counter-intuitively, getting back to
the original spirit of Christmas by sending it into outer space. The
underlying plot thread then finds Stevens descending altitude slightly and
sharing his feelings of contentment about his newfound Christmas enlightenment.
The album starts with a complete re-working of the 19th
century carol, “Angels We Have Heard on High.” Stevens jettisons the original
melody and lyrics as the traditional chorus beings with “angels we have
heard on high” and Stevens answers by radioing in from the distance: “singing
for the earth’s attention.” He goes on to trade lines with the chorus (presumably from the pilot’s chair of his Christmas Gundam Robot) like some
Yuletide Bowie in Space: Chorus of Angels – “Shepherds, why this jubilee?” Stevens
- “Have you seen the flying saucer?” Though it seems Stevens has only
unwittingly found himself here, scarcely
believing what to his wondering eyes should appear, he soon joins in the chorus of “glorias” and seems to find some comfort in the ethereal space of the
heavens. After the second chorus, Stevens
breaks out the big guns, seemingly fiddling with the control panel of his
Christmas spaceship, as we get a taste of the bass-heavy synthesized sound that
will dominate the rest of the album.
We next hear Stevens fully embracing his role as a member of
the heavenly multitudes. Voice awash in auto-tune, having fully converted to
electronic instrumentation, he continues the story of the angels delivering the
message of Christ’s birth on “Do You See What I See?” It’s a song that explains
how the news travels from the “night wind” to a “little lamb” to a “shepherd
boy” to a “mighty king” to the “people everywhere.” As the information spreads,
the messengers ask each other whether they “see,” “hear,” and “know” the same
things now that this, presumably, unifying event has occurred. After the
traditional lyrics have run their course, Stevens takes this a step further,
deviating from script, and asking “do you feel what I feel now?” in a five
minute outro that repeats the sentiment again, and again, in order to
thoroughly drive home the point that this is really what is on his mind. Forget
“seeing” and “hearing” and “knowing”… can you “feel” this? Stevens warbles
through the line over and over through layers of auto-tune that make it sound
as if his consciousness has become grafted into the mainframe of his Christmas
shuttle.
“Christmas in the Room” comes next but first we’ll cover the
improbable five-song run that leads to the album's finale.
First, we get a 48-second instrumental version of “It Came
Upon the Midnight Clear,” with a melody that sounds like its being played on a
light-sabre, before a computerized voice stoically announces “Merry Christmas”
and Stevens launches into another heavily amended version of a traditional
carol, “Good King Wenceslas.” Here it sounds like Stevens has taken a detour to
a Christmas space station on the moon, denizens yelling, “Hey, it’s Christmas!”
upon his arrival. Stevens informs them of the good deeds of Saint Wenceslas
before the song, inexplicably, seamlessly transitions into a cover of Prince’s
“Alphabet Street.” (The album humorously credits the song to “His Majesty
Prince.”) It’s difficult to even begin explaining the thought-process here
(assuming there even was one) but the least we might be able to say is that
given how surprisingly natural this sounds, it might just be a testament to how
comfortable Stevens is becoming with his new outlook on Christmas. It’s no
longer a confusing, shameful, marathon of second-guessing. It’s perfectly fine
to mix Good King Wenceslas with Good Prince Rogers Nelson. Christmas should
sound however you want it to sound.
Alphabet Street transitions into a one-minute Stevens original instrumental composition called “Particle Physics,” (that sounds exactly how you would expect) before finishing up with a take on “Joy to the World.” This is a song that Stevens covered on Songs for Christmas and his change of perspective in the mean time is evident. This is yet one more traditional song on this album, announcing the birth of Christ, that Stevens has morphed into an electronic Christmas celebration. The song spirals out of control as he interpolates lyrics from the Age of Adz song, “Impossible Soul” (“boy, we can do much more together”) and reprises “do you see what I see?” before it sputters to a conclusion, the heavenly message thoroughly delivered and the Christmas Gundam out of gas.
Alphabet Street transitions into a one-minute Stevens original instrumental composition called “Particle Physics,” (that sounds exactly how you would expect) before finishing up with a take on “Joy to the World.” This is a song that Stevens covered on Songs for Christmas and his change of perspective in the mean time is evident. This is yet one more traditional song on this album, announcing the birth of Christ, that Stevens has morphed into an electronic Christmas celebration. The song spirals out of control as he interpolates lyrics from the Age of Adz song, “Impossible Soul” (“boy, we can do much more together”) and reprises “do you see what I see?” before it sputters to a conclusion, the heavenly message thoroughly delivered and the Christmas Gundam out of gas.
There are two original songs here that Stevens doesn’t play “in
character” for the album. The first is the aforementioned “Christmas in the
Room.” It’s a relatively straight-forward song that serves as a window into the
development of Stevens’ Christmas philosophy mid-infinity-voyage. The idea is basically to take Christmas and make it as small and personal as possible
with the person you love; literally reducing it to the very “room” that the two
of you are in. It’s an incredibly mature sentiment for someone who used to have
such difficulty figuring out how to actually enjoy this holiday. (The song also
includes one of the smartest, affecting melodies on the entire compilation when
Stevens sings: “oh I can see the day when we’ll die/ but I don’t care to think
of silence.”)
The album ends with “The Child With the Star on His Head,” a
15-minute epic that indicates that Stevens really has found some peace with
Christmas. He finally seems able to harmonize his appreciation for the
tradition (“the child with the star on his head”), with the secular spirit of
holiday (“I am calling you close to my table, where I have made a us a feast”),
with his acceptance of his inability to change the less savory commercialized aspects
of Christmas (“in small ideas, in engineering, the world of sports and second
best.”) He finishes the album by celebrating this epiphany with a ten-minute electronic noise jam, the same
experimental soundscape that helped him reach his newfound understanding in the first place. To Christmas infinity and beyond.
Great post!