sufjan stevens // the ascension

At an hour and twenty minutes long, Sufjan Stevens’ The Ascension is the deep, dizzying, electro opera that could only happen in 2020. It’s Stevens’ first solo studio effort since 2015’s Carrie and Lowell, and the cultural shifts and collective trauma that have occurred in the five years since then are on full display. If Carrie and Lowell was about painfully poignant and personal grief, The Ascension is about collective loss.

“America” is the twelve minute opus that concludes the album, and while it might have served better as a single than being tacked on after the cathartic and revealing title track that precedes it, in many ways it’s the thesis statement of the album. “Don’t do to me what you did to America,” he sings, half-taunting half-pleading. 

I have loved you, I have grieved

I'm ashamed to admit I no longer believe

….

I have loved you like a dream

I have kissed your lips like a Judas in heat

I have worshiped, I believed

He’s resentful and feeling betrayed. So many Americans-- particularly the Millennials that make up much of Stevens’ audience-- share in this commiseration. It’s trauma bonding set to a drum kit.

Certainly he has lost hope for America, and one of the most interesting recurring motifs on the album is his apparent loss of faith. This is reflected as a loss of faith in himself, God (Stevens identifies as a Christian), the trappings of fame, and the lies our generation was sold. The album is a definite departure from “The Only Thing” (on Carrie and Lowell) which describes in nakedly honest detail Stevens’ struggle with suicidal ideation, and that “the only thing” keeping him alive is a belief in the mystical. The title track on The Ascension serves as a response that sentiment:

And now it frightens me, the thought against my chest

To think I was asking for a reason

Explaining why everything's a total mess

And now it frightens me, the dreams that I possess

To think I was acting like a believer

When I was just angry and depressed

And to everything there is no meaning

A season of pain and hopelessness

I shouldn't have looked for revelation

I should have resigned myself to this

In the same song, he references Cordelia from Shakespeare’s King Lear:

Then Cordelia came back in a chariot hallucination

Something to rejoice, glorious in its wrath

But the prophecy was a pantomime

As it came to me in accusation

Show them what is right, show them what is best

In the play, Cordelia is banished from her father’s kingdom for refusing to profess her love to him. She returns at the end to help her ailing father (who is going insane), with the intention to forgive him. But “the prophecy was a pantomime” as Lear has no idea who she is and eventually both she and Lear are hanged. Stevens might be referring to his previous album again, which explored his complex relationship with his deceased mother. Many of the tracks on that album (“Fourth of July”, “Should’ve Known Better”, “Death with Dignity”) center around Stevens attempting to forgive his mother for her myriad misdeeds, and the confessional lyrics do attempt to “show [us] what is right, show [us] what is best.” But here again is the loss of faith, this time in himself:

I thought I could change the world around me

I thought I could change the world for best

I thought I was called in convocation

I thought I was sanctified and blessed

The song ends with a haunting refrain, looping like an obsessive worry “What now? What now? What now?” He dedicates another song to disillusionment, this time with the Industrial Social Media Fame Complex, in the intentionally if mischievously catchy “Video Game”:

I don't wanna be the center of the universe

I don't wanna be a part of that shame

In a way I wanna be my own redeemer

I don't wanna play your video game

While much of the album is a thematic departure for Stevens, one particular track hits squarely in his comfort zone: “Die Happy.” The nearly six-minute song has one line: “I want to die happy.” It’s repeated over swirling, spiraling, buzzing, rising and falling synthesizers and electronic drum beats. Death is likely Steven’s most-covered topics, be it murder (“John Wayne Gacy Jr” on Illinois), suicide (“The Only Thing” and “No Shade in the Shadow of the Cross” on Carrie and Lowell, “Neptune” on Planetarium), and cancer (“Fourth of July” on Carrie and Lowell). One of his most famous refrains is from “Fourth of July,” in which he repeatedly sings in his high falsetto “we’re all gonna die.” But “Die Happy” stands out from these, not just because of its relatively sparse lyrics, but because of how it fits in with the theme of the album. It feels like a mantra, as if stating “I want to die happy” for six minutes will bring him the ascension he’s seeking. Yet Stevens knows what the listener knows, which is that he will always have a preoccupation with loneliness and death. In “Gilgamesh”: 

I am lost, forgive me

(Only the lonely)

…

And with your final breath, remember

The day of rest has now arrived

(Only the lonely)

Death and anxiety permeate every track on the album. From the sonic panic attack that is “Ativan” (one the best odes to a benzodiazepine I’ve ever heard) to the suffocating “Landslide,” the album properly reflects the era in which it was released. With shelter in place orders still in place, the political landscape ranging from dire to outright terrifying, unrest and uncertainty in the air, Stevens’ loss of faith is our loss of faith. His pain, his confusion, his discontent, his disillusionment is universal. 

While the acoustic guitars, gentle strumming, and empty, echoing, haunting whispers of his last album are absent from The Ascension, the electronic backing doesn’t obscure or dilute the message of the album. While it explores loss, it’s not hopeless. In an interview with The Atlantic, Stevens said, “I don’t want anyone to think that what we’re going through is unsolvable, because I don’t believe that. I still have faith, I still have hope, I still have love …” That’s illustrated on “Goodbye to All That”:

Circa Nineteen Seventy Five

Now that it's too late to have died a young man

Well, I'm just glad that I'm still alive

For what hasn't killed me will make me stronger

Perhaps that is the ultimate takeaway: the Trump and Covid Era have caused emotional and cultural damage that feels irrevocable, and our trust in something larger (the concept of America, the idea that justice is served and good guys win) has largely been broken. Yet we must transcend that together. What hasn’t killed us will make us stronger. The collective trauma will lead to collective healing. There will be joy again. 

Call off all emergency and

Look at things the way I see them

For the beauty of the Earth

It shows us wisdom, love, and rebirth

— ”Ursa Major”