Sufjan Stevens has returned with a harrowing single off his upcoming album, Carrie & Lowell. “No Shade in the Shadow of the Cross” is an extremely personal ballad about Stevens’ mother (who died in 2012) and the wavering of Christian faith in times of suffering. Supposedly his mother left him and his siblings when he was just a toddler and fled to Oregon, where he only saw her for three summers of his youth. Such lines as, “I slept on my back / In the shade of the meadowlark / Like a champion / Get drunk to get laid / I take one more hit when you depart,” show the confusion Stevens faced trying to grasp his obscure relationship with his mother and her recent death. Through this confusion there is also rage and frustration that Sufjan packs into his delicate harmonies, with lines such as “There’s blood on that blade / Fuck me, I’m falling apart / My assassin / Like Casper the ghost / There’s no shade in the shadow of the cross.”
Carrie & Lowell is rumored to be full of delicate folk ballads that are dark, personal, and give faces to the demons that the 39-year-old singer has hinted at throughout his career. Prepare to reflect on your own hardships, and perhaps lost youth, as you listen to this.
Listen below.
Carrie & Lowell is out March 31 on Asthmatic Kitty.
