Shout Out / Sufjan Stevens

This is a page for the references and allusions found in the work of Sufjan Stevens.

A SUN CAME

• According to an ancient interview in Sound Collector, "Kill" is a retelling of Sherwood Anderson's "The Man Who Became a Woman".

SEVEN SWANS

• The album is rife with references to the works of Flannery O’Connor:
  • "A Good Man is Hard to Find" is based on her short story by the same name.
  • "In the Devil's Territory" takes its title from a line in Mystery and Manners.
  • "Size Too Small" contains the phrase "everything rises, going at it all," which could be read as a reference to O'Connor's story "Everything That Rises Must Converge".
  • The Title Track has a lot in common thematically with her two novels, The Violent Bear it Away and Wise Blood.

ILLINOIS

• Songs on the album mention Abraham Lincoln and his wife Mary Todd Lincoln; politician Stephen A. Douglas; Helen Keller; serial killer John Wayne Gacy, Jr.; black preacher A.W. Jackson; social activist Jane Addams; musician Benny Goodman; baseball player Joe Jackson; as well as the Chicago Cubs and its associated goat curse.
• "The Man of Metropolis Steals Our Hearts" is about Superman being created in Illinois. Superman was also infamously included on initial editions of the album but removed to avoid issues with copyright.
• The title of ''Come On Feel the Illinoise!" is a play on Slade's "Cum On Feel the Noize".
  • The song uses a saxophone part from "Close to Me" by The Cure.
  • Carl Sandburg (or, rather, his ghost) appears as a character in the second part of the song.
• "Chicago" is very loosely inspired by the Carl Sandburg poem of the same name.
• "The Tallest Man, The Broadest Shoulders" mentions "The Great Frontier", a book by Walter Prescott Webb on the settlement of the American West.
• "They Are Night Zombies!.." fittingly mentions Night of the Living Dead (1968).
• "In This Temple as in the Hearts of Man for Whom He Saved the Earth" bases its name off of part of the Lincoln Memorial epitaph ("In this temple as in the hearts of the people for whom he [Lincoln] saved the union").

THE AVALANCHE

• "Dear Mr. Supercomputer" references the Beatles song "You Never Give Me Your Money", with the lines "1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 / All computers go to heaven". (In the Beatles version, sung to the same rhythm, it's "all good children".)
• "No Man's Land" reworks lyrics from "This Land Is Your Land" by Woody Guthrie.

CHRISTMAS SONGS

• "Christmas Unicorn" samples Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart".
• The claymation music video for "Mr Frosty Man" pays homage to the famous chainsaw sequence from Evil Dead 2.

ALL DELIGHTED PEOPLE

• He uses lyrics from "The Sounds of Silence" on the title track of All Delighted People.
• There's a blink-and-you'll-miss-it reference to "the Aleph room" (i.e. a room where one can see every point of the universe at once) from Jorge Luis Borges' story "The Aleph" in "From the Mouth of Gabriel."

CARRIE & LOWELL

• "Death with Dignity" references the fable of the little Red Hen, wherein an industrious barnyard animal does all the hard work to make bread while the other animals laze around.
• The indifferent partner in "All of Me Wants All of You" is compared to Poseidon, the ancient Greek god the sea.
• "Drawn to the Blood" references the myth of Samson and Delilah.
• "In the Shadow of the Cross" is a hymn by William J. Henry.

THE GREATEST GIFT

• "Wallowa Lake Monster" references the demogorgon, the Leviathan, and famed Nez Perce chief Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt.

THE ASCENSION

• Several of the songs share titles with famous tracks by other artists (e.g. "Run Away With Me", "Tell Me You Love Me", "Landslide").
• The song titles and lyrics reference media as diverse as The Godfather ("Make Me an Offer I Cannot Refuse"), Depeche Mode ("I don't wanna be your personal Jesus..."), The Silence of the Lambs ("Put the lotion in the basket..."), Star Wars ("Death Star"), The Epic of Gilgamesh ("Gilgamesh"), the essays of Joan Didion ("Goodbye To All That"), and King Lear ("Then Cordelia came back in a chariot hallucination...").

A BEGINNER'S MIND

Each track was inspired by a different film, so naturally the lyrics are full of references:

• "Reach Out" is inspired by Wings of Desire.
• "Lady Macbeth In Chains" is inspired by All About Eve.
  • The title also references the famous character from Macbeth.
• "Back To Oz" is inspired by Return to Oz.
• "The Pillar Of Souls" is inspired by Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth.
• "You Give Death A Bad Name" is inspired by Night of the Living Dead (1968).
  • Sufjan previously referenced this film in "They Are Night Zombies...", on Illinois.
  • The title and some of the lyrics also shout out "You Give Love a Bad Name" by Bon Jovi.
• "Beginner's Mind" is inspired by Point Break (1991).
• "Olympus" is inspired by Clash of the Titans (1981).
• "Murder And Crime" is inspired by Mad Max.
• "(This Is) The Thing" is inspired by The Thing (1982).
• "It's Your Own Body And Mind" is inspired by She's Gotta Have It.
• "Lost In The World" is inspired by The Last Wave.
  • The song also shares a title with a Kanye West track.
• "Fictional California" is inspired by Bring It On Again.
• "Cimmerian Shade" is inspired by The Silence of the Lambs.
  • Sufjan previously referenced this film in "Ativan", on The Ascension.
• "Lacrimae" is inspired by a Nikos Nikolaidis short film called Lacrimae Rerum.

OTHER

• "Mystery of Love" mentions the relationship between Alexander & Hephaestion.
• "Visions of Gideon" name-drops the prophet Gideon.
• "Tonya Harding" is about (surprise!) Olympic figure skater Tonya Harding.
  • It also references figure skating contemporaries Kristi Yamaguchi and Nancy Kerrigan, including the infamous attack on the latter.
• "Borderline" borrows a couple lines from Madonna's song of the same name.