i (heart) michigan

I am not sure if you love your state, but I'm sure I love mine. My state is Michigan. It is a state where the vast majority of the population is crammed into a few counties in the Southeast, creating an interesting corner of urbanization, while all else is open and largely undeveloped wilderness. It's a beautiful, warm (not temperature-wise) place where the communities are tight-knit, and there is much love to give and receive. Considering I have had the opportunity to hang out and live in places outside of Michigan, I know that the concept of a caring community, and a gorgeous and safe place to live, are probably taken for granted by most people in Michigan. But the grass is _not_ greener on the other side. In fact, most places don't even have that much grass! Let alone the bright glistening of the sticky snowfall, great bodies of shimmering fresh water, or any of the natural harmonizing ambiance that Michigan possesses.

Leave it to up-and-coming, multi-talented folk artist, Sufjan Stevens, to bring out all that is priceless about the mitten, with "Greetings from Michigan". This Detroit-born native has captured every nook and cranny of The Wolverine State with vibrant, far-reaching ambition, that could only be captured by a man with a ballooning heart pumping the clear waters of Lake Michigan, as they flow to the shore of lovely Traverse City. His dedication to his home is one any Michigander can be proud of, and any non-Michigander can feel within their bones, even if they've never had the pleasure of a Zehnder's chicken dinner in Frankenmuth or taking in a game at historic Tiger's Stadium (now happily retired).

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a lone duck floating in the Huron River

The solemn enchantments of Michigan are the first things that I think about when I listen to Stevens' "Greetings From Michigan". It gives you chills like a cool breeze in October, when you see the orange, burgundy, and brownish leaves fall from the trees and squirrels run for cover. Reminiscent of sipping beers late at night with your friends at the home-town bar, regardless of if you're in Depot Town or in Greek Town. Smile-inducing, like making snow angels on the lakeside in Muskegon. Ahh, the simple things.

I can feel this in Romulus (home of Detroit Metro Airport...and little else) with its tender piano highlights, and (breath...and 2) skipping guitars, which seem to be in step with a young child's hopefully ignorant heart. Don't worry, you can play in the leaves just a bit longer.

The wondrous breeze of sound gets a bit fuller on Sleeping Bear, Sault Saint Marie. While I hope he is not consciously inferring that Sleeping Bear Point is in Sault Ste. Marie (it isn't - different peninsulas actually), I hope he _is_ consciously freeing the beauty of the great sand dunes and locks which highlight our beautiful waterways on both Michigan and Huron. A wide-eyed organ gently pulls open the sound waves to be filled by contemplative woodwind chords and swirls, heavy piano, and of course, the pluck of the banjo, as if it's the heart of The Great Lakes State.

The sorrows of living remotely are brought out on the despondent The Upper Peninsula. With the good comes the bad. As the drums crash and banjos pick along a dead-end path, Stevens sings of living poor and losing the little bit you have. Not an unfathomable reality for those living in the far less inhabited, far less industrialized, upper peninsula. The somber 'n sad moods set a good balance to the other slow joys experienced on "Greetings From Michigan".

There are even a few short instrumental tracks that look to bring a melody to the aura of certain sites in Michigan. Tahquamenon Falls features a synergy of bells that seem to bounce off of one another like a waterfall to a river. Alanson, Crooked River takes the same percussive approach but with a more dense feel to the low plungs, like a slower moving river should sound. And while Redford (for Yia-Yai & Pappou) is not about nature but about emotions of remembrance, that makes it all the more powerful. With the piano strolls in loved ones that only appear in disturbingly vivid dreams; with the "ahhh"'s goes your blood-pumping, emotion tossing muscle.

The wilderness. The sand dunes. The thick brush for miles of nothing. The foxes and their foxholes. The Great Lakes. The rolling greenery of the Irish Hills.

An Oberon in the summer. A creeky wooden porch. Family in the rural north.

Michigan. Experienced through your two eyes, and your own touch, and your own senses.

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starry eyed like a Pistons parade

Sure, sometimes Stevens falls into a bit of melancholy throughout "Greetings From Michigan". It's not Heaven; it's a place that houses the struggle of humanity like every other place. But in struggle we hold each other, we catch tears in our t-shirts. And when we're born there, we don't like to leave. And since we're there, we celebrate! We throw bon-fires and burn couches; we bump music in our old, early 1900s houses, and roll in kegs; we play backyard football in the mud slicks left by bitterly cold autumn rainfall. We do what you do but we do it like we do it in Michigan. And Stevens can't help but be proud of that.

Bright and sincerely exuberant pianos tap-dance you into All Good Naysayers, Speak Up! Or Forever Hold Your Peace, where Steven's carefully articulates the power of love overcoming worldliness in Michigan. To that spirit, he also gives Detroit the most angelic butt-kicking ever, with Oh Detroit, Lift Up Your Weary Head (Restore! Rebuild! Reconsider). Amen to those sentiments, as he begins his eight minute long remembrance of Detroit's greatness with, "once a great place/ now a prison." Yet, he _does_ remember, and he _does_ plead for a great future, while mostly celebrating the past, with the help of excited (for a renaissance) backup singers, trying to pump life back into the slowly reviving metropolis. What could be sad and downtrodden is instead optimistic and animated.

The most organic of Michigan celebrations can be found on the soothing Say Yes! To M!ch!gan. Like a ray of light peaking through the black clouds (which it sometimes feels like Michigan is), the horns and elaborately tip-toeing percussion put breath into the chest of the natural life possessed by Michigan. It is in this moment where Stevens admits - when he's away, he sure does wish he could go back to the "golden arms" in Michigan.

And the golden arms await _you_. Be it eight arms of an octopus at Joe Louis Arena or just one, from a loved one, around your waist as you explore the history of tiny Mackinac Island.

Smile, laugh, and don't worry.

Not too much. Not in Michigan.

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make a special detour to Ypsilanti, home of EMU

I can't help but be more than a little proud to say that the title of the song which references the city which I grew up in (Ypsilanti; pronounced Ip-suh-lan-tee) holds the dearest sentiments of my home state. For The Widows In Paradise, For the Fatherless in Ypsilanti is one of the more rootsy or woodsy type songs, and in its stripped-down, pure conception epitomizes life in the mitten. As the contrasting banjos speak the truths and breaths of each of Michigan's residents, the somber horns blow in a blanket of warmth, to highlight Stevens' bleeding-heart sentiments of just, being there.

like a father to impress
like a mother's morning dress
if you ever make a mess
i'll do anything for you

We travel but we always come back.

We like the warmth of the mitten.

It's not perfect; it's just home.

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i'll pick you up in Romulus, or maybe in Grand Rapids

You don't have to be from Michigan, you don't even have to have visited Michigan, to embrace the gems that Sufjan Stevens lays down on wax. You don't have to know where Pigeon is (most people _in_ Michigan don't), nor do you have to realize that Michigan does indeed have two separate peninsulas. You just have to love music that hugs the air; that allows you to relax, kick back, and take in the surroundings of life. Enjoying the sounds of the banjo wouldn't hurt either.

With this, the beauty and grace of Michigan cannot be captured in a bottle, a heart, nor a song. But Steven's ambitious, folk anchored, multi(multi, multi)-instrumental, impassioned "Greetings From Michigan", brings a little bit of the state's essence into your speakers. It's not that much different from where you're from. Just a whole 'nother world.

It's Michigan.

My heart beats anywhere.

It sings in Michigan.

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Sufjan Stevens
"Greetings From Michigan"
Sounds Familyre: 2003

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15 Tracks
66 mins. & 9 secs.

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For more information about Cryptic Cradle and his reviews, please click here.

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Written by Cryptic Cradle for Spike-A-Delic Productions.

Recommended: Yes