You can get off to a fast start. You can sustain your opener with the main course, not filler. But can you end on a high note? Sometimes I wonder if recording a strong closer is the most difficult thing to pull off when it comes to album rock. When it comes to the cream of the crop in music, I can think of more strong openers than strong closers. Nonetheless, I still have my favorites which I’ll be featuring on Mental Jukebox all month.
There are many great Sufjan Stevens albums – and great they are for different reasons. But the ones I keep coming back to are the albums that are focused more on the simple songwriting and melodies than instrumental experimentation. Seven Swans does this. The famed Illinoise album does, too. My third favorite album on the simpler side of the spectrum within Sufjans’ catalog is Carrie & Lowell – an intensely personal album full of anecdotes and confessions as if they’re told from an old friend. Every track is a minimalistic songwriting wonder, including the closer “Blue Bucket Of Gold”.
A song for the dead of night, “Blue Bucket Of Gold” resides in the quiet, in the darkness. Sufjan sings like he’s speaking softly on the other end of the phone – and every single word is visceral. It is achingly honest, vulnerable and intimate, framed by the artist’s unique chord structures emanating from an echoey, chilling synthesizer. The synth sounds swirl solo for the last minute and a half, like the remnants of the words uttered. A perfect track choice to wind down Carrie & Lowell.
“Search for things to extol. Friend, the fables delight me. My blue bucket of gold. Lord, touch me with lightning.”