| Sufjan Stevens – All Delighted People (Original Version) Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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There are tons of lyric corrections that need to be made on this song. Honestly, this should have been perfect the first time, as they were published online on the bandcamp site itself with the song. Here's the actual lyrics: Tomorrow you’ll see it through The clouded out disguises put you in the room And though I wandered out alone A thousand lights abounded on our home And I remember every sound it made The clouded out disguises and the grave So yeah I know I’m still afraid Of letting go of choices I have made All delighted people raise their hands And I took you by the sleeve No other reason than to be leading your leading man And you woke up with a fright Our lives depended on the visions through the night All we had always, all we had always wanted to before The hurricane inclined us, grappling on the floor All delighted people raise their hands Still the force of nature spurned Ideas of strength and style abated by the burning basement All delight people raise their hands I’m not easily confused The trouble with the storm inside us grew But I had so much to give In spite of all the terror and abuse And the people bowed and prayed And what difference does it make for you and me? All delighted people raise their hands And the people bowed and prayed And what difference does it make? It doesn’t matter anyway The world surrounds us with its hate Hello darkness my old friend it breaks my heart I’ve come to strangle you in spite of what you’d like And don’t be a rascal, don’t be a laughing dog in spite of odds All I’m deciphering from the spirits in the light within All delighted people raise their hands In restless dreams I walked alone I walked alive The clouded out disguises left me in a dream of lightness All delighted people raise their hands And the people bowed and prayed To the neon god they made And what difference does it make? I love you so much anyway And on your breast I gently laid Your arms surround me in the lake I am joined with you forever And the people bowed and prayed And what difference does it make for you and me? All delighted people raise their hands I’m not easily confused I feel alive I feel it glowing in the room All delighted people raise their hands…. And the people bowed and prayed Oh I love you a lot; Oh! I love you from the top of my heart And what difference does it make? I still love you a lot; Oh! I love you from the top of my heart And on your breast I gently laid all my head in your arms Do you love me from the top of your heart? I tried my best I tried in vain. Do you love me a lot? Do you love me from the top of your heart? And the people bowed and prayed Oh! I love you a lot; Oh! I love you from the top of my heart And you can see through my mistakes Oh! I’ll tell it to you now; Oh! I’ll tell it from the top of my heart And what difference does it make If the world is a mess; if the world is a mess? And on your breast I gently laid Oh! I’ll tell it to you now; Oh! I’ll tell it to you now (When the world’s come and gone shall we follow our transgressions Or shall we stand strong?) I tried to save the things I made Oh! But the world is a mess, Oh! But the world is a mess And what difference does it make if the world is a mess? If the world is a mess! I tried my best I tried in vain Oh! But the world is a mess! Oh! But the world is a mess! (Suffer not the child among you or shall you die young…) |
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| Sufjan Stevens – All Delighted People (Original Version) Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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Sufjan Steven’s All Delighted People was released on an online EP of the same name during summer 2010 with no prior notice, catching consumers and critics off guard alike. On the release website, the EP is described as being “built around two different versions of Sufjan’s long-form epic ballad ‘All Delighted People,’” with the song itself being described as “a dramatic homage to the Apocalypse, existential ennui, and Paul Simon’s ‘Sounds of Silence.’” The EP is 8 tracks long, of which (as stated) 2 are different versions of All Delighted People itself, which is a nearly 12 minute long song. (The lyrics are the same in both versions.) The lyrics oscillate between impenetrably cryptic and profoundly simple throughout the song– a feature more common than not in his works–and several themes appear throughout the length of the lengthy ballad: the world frequently bows and prays to a neon god it has made, and surrounds the speaker with hate; storms brew, hurricanes menace; dreams are walked in; darkness is personified (a la Sound of Silence); light is felt at a climax in the song, glowing in a room, while at other times spirits and light are deciphered. The symbolic landscape is immense, overwhelming, rich and fractured. Beyond any one image, motif, or symbol, however is a recurring character present throughout the song: an unnamed woman. The standard interpretation sees her as a former girlfriend, and gives her little emphasis. This interpretation is supported by the general theme of love especially later in the song, as well as expressions of physical intimacy (“on your breast I gently laid”; “your arms surround me in the lake”). This interpretation, however, admits most of the lyrics as an unrelated mystery. Because of this mystery, the woman has been avoided as a focus in previous attempts at interpretation–generally, she is taken as the only clear symbol extant in the song at all. I propose that this is unsatisfactory. While I believe the unexplained itself points to the probability of a deeper underlying problem with interpretation, I will start with an ever more clear indication, which is itself the spark of the epiphany that preceeded this paper: the expressions of physical intimacy in the song are not congruent with romance. Love is a mysterious thing–love in general, as opposed to specifically romantic love, that is. There is much talk about how love is described or named within a language; the Greeks famously had their handful from eros to storge, while among Spanish speaking countries there is a range of usage variances concerning “te amo” vs. “te quiero”–and in English, the language with the richest vocabulary of them all, we have: “love”–One word to cover them all. It could be perceived as limiting, stifling–or perhaps we should take it as a statement unto itself. In reality, there can be observed a very close link between the different kinds of love. We would like to think otherwise–it’s uncomfortable to think we love our mothers as we love our ‘lovers’, in our cultural context–but often has the link been observed between women’s relationship to their father and their husband, or the parallels between a man’s relationship with his mother and his wife. But there are nuances. We have been conditioned in modern music to expect love between man and woman to be romantic be default, but here this does not seem to be the case. Visualize for yourself: does a man typically lay his head on a woman’s breast? Isn’t the stronger image (in romance, at least) the opposite? Is it typically a woman’s arms who surround a man–or, again, isn’t it more normal (within a romantic context) for the man to be the one holding, surrounding a woman? But there is an exception: a boy in relation to his mother. This shift sheds light on concepts far beyond the expressions of love in Delighted, and into the core of the song and potentially all the motifs present. From other songs, we get a picture of Sufjan’s relationship to his mother that help us in this direction–from The Seer’s Tower, we have the line “Oh, my mother, she betrayed us, but my father loved and bathed us.” Also, although too lengthy to quote, the theme of the entire song Romulus seems to be an absent mother and the abandonment the children felt. From external information (see notes), it can be found that Sufjan’s mother actually suffered from Schizophrenia. Suddenly, the line “clouded out disguises” begins to take form and meaning. Images of abuse, of home, “visions through the night”, “woke up with a fright”; all of these begin to seem coherent in their mysteriousness, begin to form a silhouette in the fog of symbols. The fringe religious groups that marked Sufjan’s upbringing also bring into focus the lines that seem critical of prayer–lines which are otherwise somewhat confusing, as Sufjan is seemingly a devout Christian. “Do you love me a lot?” becomes not just a childish expression of vulnerability toward an old lover (which, again, almost makes sense but not quite; why ask if your ex-girlfriend still loves you?), but instead the voice of a child speaking to his mother, innocently longing. “You can see through my mistakes,” further childlike vulnerability. The list goes on; this interpretation of the song means that it is no longer taken as just a dramatic post break-up song, but as a meditation on childhood echoes, pains, and memories. “I am joined with you forever,” instead of a refusal to let go, becomes an admission of Sufjan’s as he ages (at the time the album was released, he was 35) that he cannot escape the results of the relationship with his mother. The implications and connections go deeper, and this song still has much to be explored, but this could be a vital key to understanding what’s going on in Sufjan’s masterpiece here. It should be noted how well this creates an arc with the last song on the album–Dhjoriah, which is described as an anthem to single mothers. |
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| Sufjan Stevens – All Delighted People (Original Version) Lyrics | 14 years ago |
|
Sufjan Steven’s All Delighted People was released on an online EP of the same name during summer 2010 with no prior notice, catching consumers and critics off guard alike. On the release website, the EP is described as being “built around two different versions of Sufjan’s long-form epic ballad ‘All Delighted People,’” with the song itself being described as “a dramatic homage to the Apocalypse, existential ennui, and Paul Simon’s ‘Sounds of Silence.’” The EP is 8 tracks long, of which (as stated) 2 are different versions of All Delighted People itself, which is a nearly 12 minute long song. (The lyrics are the same in both versions.) The lyrics oscillate between impenetrably cryptic and profoundly simple throughout the song– a feature more common than not in his works–and several themes appear throughout the length of the lengthy ballad: the world frequently bows and prays to a neon god it has made, and surrounds the speaker with hate; storms brew, hurricanes menace; dreams are walked in; darkness is personified (a la Sound of Silence); light is felt at a climax in the song, glowing in a room, while at other times spirits and light are deciphered. The symbolic landscape is immense, overwhelming, rich and fractured. Beyond any one image, motif, or symbol, however is a recurring character present throughout the song: an unnamed woman. The standard interpretation sees her as a former girlfriend, and gives her little emphasis. This interpretation is supported by the general theme of love especially later in the song, as well as expressions of physical intimacy (“on your breast I gently laid”; “your arms surround me in the lake”). This interpretation, however, admits most of the lyrics as an unrelated mystery. Because of this mystery, the woman has been avoided as a focus in previous attempts at interpretation–generally, she is taken as the only clear symbol extant in the song at all. I propose that this is unsatisfactory. While I believe the unexplained itself points to the probability of a deeper underlying problem with interpretation, I will start with an ever more clear indication, which is itself the spark of the epiphany that preceeded this paper: the expressions of physical intimacy in the song are not congruent with romance. Love is a mysterious thing–love in general, as opposed to specifically romantic love, that is. There is much talk about how love is described or named within a language; the Greeks famously had their handful from eros to storge, while among Spanish speaking countries there is a range of usage variances concerning “te amo” vs. “te quiero”–and in English, the language with the richest vocabulary of them all, we have: “love”–One word to cover them all. It could be perceived as limiting, stifling–or perhaps we should take it as a statement unto itself. In reality, there can be observed a very close link between the different kinds of love. We would like to think otherwise–it’s uncomfortable to think we love our mothers as we love our ‘lovers’, in our cultural context–but often has the link been observed between women’s relationship to their father and their husband, or the parallels between a man’s relationship with his mother and his wife. But there are nuances. We have been conditioned in modern music to expect love between man and woman to be romantic be default, but here this does not seem to be the case. Visualize for yourself: does a man typically lay his head on a woman’s breast? Isn’t the stronger image (in romance, at least) the opposite? Is it typically a woman’s arms who surround a man–or, again, isn’t it more normal (within a romantic context) for the man to be the one holding, surrounding a woman? But there is an exception: a boy in relation to his mother. This shift sheds light on concepts far beyond the expressions of love in Delighted, and into the core of the song and potentially all the motifs present. From other songs, we get a picture of Sufjan’s relationship to his mother that help us in this direction–from The Seer’s Tower, we have the line “Oh, my mother, she betrayed us, but my father loved and bathed us.” Also, although too lengthy to quote, the theme of the entire song Romulus seems to be an absent mother and the abandonment the children felt. From external information (see notes), it can be found that Sufjan’s mother actually suffered from Schizophrenia. Suddenly, the line “clouded out disguises” begins to take form and meaning. Images of abuse, of home, “visions through the night”, “woke up with a fright”; all of these begin to seem coherent in their mysteriousness, begin to form a silhouette in the fog of symbols. The fringe religious groups that marked Sufjan’s upbringing also bring into focus the lines that seem critical of prayer–lines which are otherwise somewhat confusing, as Sufjan is seemingly a devout Christian. “Do you love me a lot?” becomes not just a childish expression of vulnerability toward an old lover (which, again, almost makes sense but not quite; why ask if your ex-girlfriend still loves you?), but instead the voice of a child speaking to his mother, innocently longing. “You can see through my mistakes,” further childlike vulnerability. The list goes on; this interpretation of the song means that it is no longer taken as just a dramatic post break-up song, but as a meditation on childhood echoes, pains, and memories. “I am joined with you forever,” instead of a refusal to let go, becomes an admission of Sufjan’s as he ages (at the time the album was released, he was 35) that he cannot escape the results of the relationship with his mother. The implications and connections go deeper, and this song still has much to be explored, but this could be a vital key to understanding what’s going on in Sufjan’s masterpiece here. It should be noted how well this creates an arc with the last song on the album–Dhjoriah, which is described as an anthem to single mothers. |
|
| Sufjan Stevens – All Delighted People (Original Version) Lyrics | 14 years ago |
|
Sufjan Steven’s All Delighted People was released on an online EP of the same name during summer 2010 with no prior notice, catching consumers and critics off guard alike. On the release website, the EP is described as being “built around two different versions of Sufjan’s long-form epic ballad ‘All Delighted People,’” with the song itself being described as “a dramatic homage to the Apocalypse, existential ennui, and Paul Simon’s ‘Sounds of Silence.’” The EP is 8 tracks long, of which (as stated) 2 are different versions of All Delighted People itself, which is a nearly 12 minute long song. (The lyrics are the same in both versions.) The lyrics oscillate between impenetrably cryptic and profoundly simple throughout the song– a feature more common than not in his works–and several themes appear throughout the length of the lengthy ballad: the world frequently bows and prays to a neon god it has made, and surrounds the speaker with hate; storms brew, hurricanes menace; dreams are walked in; darkness is personified (a la Sound of Silence); light is felt at a climax in the song, glowing in a room, while at other times spirits and light are deciphered. The symbolic landscape is immense, overwhelming, rich and fractured. Beyond any one image, motif, or symbol, however is a recurring character present throughout the song: an unnamed woman. The standard interpretation sees her as a former girlfriend, and gives her little emphasis. This interpretation is supported by the general theme of love especially later in the song, as well as expressions of physical intimacy (“on your breast I gently laid”; “your arms surround me in the lake”). This interpretation, however, admits most of the lyrics as an unrelated mystery. Because of this mystery, the woman has been avoided as a focus in previous attempts at interpretation–generally, she is taken as the only clear symbol extant in the song at all. I propose that this is unsatisfactory. While I believe the unexplained itself points to the probability of a deeper underlying problem with interpretation, I will start with an ever more clear indication, which is itself the spark of the epiphany that preceeded this paper: the expressions of physical intimacy in the song are not congruent with romance. Love is a mysterious thing–love in general, as opposed to specifically romantic love, that is. There is much talk about how love is described or named within a language; the Greeks famously had their handful from eros to storge, while among Spanish speaking countries there is a range of usage variances concerning “te amo” vs. “te quiero”–and in English, the language with the richest vocabulary of them all, we have: “love”–One word to cover them all. It could be perceived as limiting, stifling–or perhaps we should take it as a statement unto itself. In reality, there can be observed a very close link between the different kinds of love. We would like to think otherwise–it’s uncomfortable to think we love our mothers as we love our ‘lovers’, in our cultural context–but often has the link been observed between women’s relationship to their father and their husband, or the parallels between a man’s relationship with his mother and his wife. But there are nuances. We have been conditioned in modern music to expect love between man and woman to be romantic be default, but here this does not seem to be the case. Visualize for yourself: does a man typically lay his head on a woman’s breast? Isn’t the stronger image (in romance, at least) the opposite? Is it typically a woman’s arms who surround a man–or, again, isn’t it more normal (within a romantic context) for the man to be the one holding, surrounding a woman? But there is an exception: a boy in relation to his mother. This shift sheds light on concepts far beyond the expressions of love in Delighted, and into the core of the song and potentially all the motifs present. From other songs, we get a picture of Sufjan’s relationship to his mother that help us in this direction–from The Seer’s Tower, we have the line “Oh, my mother, she betrayed us, but my father loved and bathed us.” Also, although too lengthy to quote, the theme of the entire song Romulus seems to be an absent mother and the abandonment the children felt. From external information (see notes), it can be found that Sufjan’s mother actually suffered from Schizophrenia. Suddenly, the line “clouded out disguises” begins to take form and meaning. Images of abuse, of home, “visions through the night”, “woke up with a fright”; all of these begin to seem coherent in their mysteriousness, begin to form a silhouette in the fog of symbols. The fringe religious groups that marked Sufjan’s upbringing also bring into focus the lines that seem critical of prayer–lines which are otherwise somewhat confusing, as Sufjan is seemingly a devout Christian. “Do you love me a lot?” becomes not just a childish expression of vulnerability toward an old lover (which, again, almost makes sense but not quite; why ask if your ex-girlfriend still loves you?), but instead the voice of a child speaking to his mother, innocently longing. “You can see through my mistakes,” further childlike vulnerability. The list goes on; this interpretation of the song means that it is no longer taken as just a dramatic post break-up song, but as a meditation on childhood echoes, pains, and memories. “I am joined with you forever,” instead of a refusal to let go, becomes an admission of Sufjan’s as he ages (at the time the album was released, he was 35) that he cannot escape the results of the relationship with his mother. The implications and connections go deeper, and this song still has much to be explored, but this could be a vital key to understanding what’s going on in Sufjan’s masterpiece here. It should be noted how well this creates an arc with the last song on the album–Dhjoriah, which is described as an anthem to single mothers. |
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