On April 24, Sufjan Stevens’ masterpiece Illinois opens as a dance musical on Broadway.
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The adaptation of his 2005 album is a collaboration between Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Jackie Sibblies Drury and choreographer Justin Peck. The musical will run at the St. James Theater until August 10.
Like the great city, “Chicago” is a dense and complex piece of a more considerable work. It’s an ambitious song within an equally ambitious project where Stevens created his second concept album based on a state.
While Illinois reaches Broadway, Stevens has moved on from his 50 states project. He told Vulture, “I feel like my whole music career has been an exercise in calling my own bluff.” He said he’s finally moving on.
And moving on is really what “Chicago” is about.
Going Somewhere
Stevens’ emotional song documents leaving one place for the hopeful future of another. In “Chicago,” the road out of town is a path to freedom “from this land.”
I fell in love again
All things go, all things go
Drove to Chicago
All things know, all things know
We sold our clothes to the state
I don’t mind, I don’t mind
I made a lot of mistakes
In my mind, in my mind
He sings earnestly over propulsive chamber pop about leaving a place and escaping an outdated version of himself (I made a lot of mistakes). “Chicago” is reinvention through destination. It’s the hopes and dreams of youth wrapped in a choir of seekers and wanderers searching for something, anything better than this.
You came to take us
All things go, all things go
To recreate us
All things grow, all things grow
Blurring Fact and Fiction
Stevens explained to the Chicago-based publication Gapers Block how “Chicago” is autobiographical. He said, “I’ve had quite a few exceptional and traumatic experiences in Illinois, a few times when visiting Chicago at a particularly difficult time in my life or driving cross country and being pulled over by the cops just outside of Peoria.”
Furthermore, he said native Illinoisans may experience the album as tourists because of how his imagination “transcends reality.”
He purposefully distorts fact and fiction by transporting his life experiences to the “landscape of Illinois.”
Researching Illinois
In preparation for the album, Stevens researched the state and read Canadian-American (and Chicago-based) writer Saul Bellow. Bellow is famous for works like The Adventures of Augie March, a Great Depression-era novel set in Chicago. Martin Amis once wrote about the book, “The Adventures of Augie March is the Great American Novel. Search no further.”
He also referenced the Carl Sandburg poem “Chicago” and researched immigration patterns to the state. Additionally, Stevens studied the cycle of civilizations and how old towns would collapse and become farms.
Illinois is the second album in his planned 50 states project, following Michigan in 2003. However, Stevens eventually acknowledged the project was a joke.
Recording an Album About Illinois in New York
Stevens primarily recorded Illinois at a studio in the New York borough of Queens. He used an antiquated 8-track machine instead of Pro Tools. He told Dusted magazine he didn’t want to use the studio’s engineer and avoided their gear, which gave him complete control over the process.
Yet, he recorded the album using a sampling rate lower than the industry standard. Using minimal equipment, Stevens performed a variety of instruments while also conducting his friends on horns and strings. Working against a staggering level of technical limitations, Stevens made one of his generation’s most important indie works.
It’s mind-boggling to think what he created on an archaic digital recording machine has ended up on Broadway.
Multiple Versions of “Chicago” and The Bear
Multiple versions of “Chicago” exist and appear on The Avalanche, a compilation album of Illinois extras and outtakes. A baroque pop take is titled “Chicago (Adult Contemporary Easy-Listening Version).” Also, a discordant variation called “Chicago (Multiple Personality Disorder Version)” was the result of Stevens and his drummer “deconstructing” the song.
Stevens told Pitchfork the adult contemporary, easy-listening version was initially intended for Illinois, but he scrapped it toward the end of the project.
Meanwhile, the song endures in popular culture in the films Little Miss Sunshine (2006) and the noir mystery Veronica Mars (2014). A demo version of “Chicago” appeared in the TV series The Bear. In the episode (“Review”), the late Chicago DJ Lin Brehmer introduces the song, which plays over the opening credits. (The Bear on Hulu follows a young award-winning chef in New York who returns home after inheriting his family’s ramshackle sandwich shop in Chicago.)
Stevens’ music is equally chaotic and controlled, and “Chicago” has elements of both. He’s desperate for a new destination but submittingly reassured in his plans.
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