At the end of the song Sufjan sings...

"And in my best behavior
I am really just like him
Look beneath the floorboards
For the secrets I have hid"

I think he is talking about the evil that lurks in the hearts of every person. So we are all, in a way, like John Wayne Gacy.

That is all fairly obvious and that song illustrates Sufjan's limitations as a writer. The idea that we all harbor evil inside is not a novel concept. It has been explored by millions of artists, even a few "indie rock" artists. The problem with "John Wayne Gacy Jr." is that Sufjan's declaration of his identification with evil at the end of the song comes off as a platitude; he never actually identifies with Gacy. What are the "secrets" he has hid? Now, take a song like "Westfall" by Okkervil River where Will Sheff writes in first person from the perspective of a killer. Sheff's cold and determined delivery along with the song's thundering and giddy tempo make the line "And when I killed her it was so easy that I wanted to kill her again" one of the eeriest moments in a rock song ever. He is fascinated by his protagonist and seemingly "turned on" by expressing the dark thoughts in his killer's head. Sheff is revealing his secret: he has felt murder in his heart and it kind of excited him. This is the art of confession, while Sufjan's is the art of sentimental liberal propaganda. Sufjan's opening stanza is the first line of thinking in any defense of this sort of crime. Sufjan's song is preachy; it begs us for our compassion of a tortured soul while Sheff's song makes both his and our own identification with evil tangible. Sheff makes us feel while Sufjan tells us how to feel. Sufjan should stick to stuff like rhyming "great debater" with "great emancipator."

quote:

Originally posted by Jamieg:
That is all fairly obvious and that song illustrates Sufjan's limitations as a writer. The idea that we all harbor evil inside is not a novel concept. It has been explored by millions of artists, even a few "indie rock" artists. The problem with "John Wayne Gacy Jr." is that Sufjan's declaration of his identification with evil at the end of the song comes off as a platitude; he never actually identifies with Gacy. What are the "secrets" he has hid? Now, take a song like "Westfall" by Okkervil River where Will Sheff writes in first person from the perspective of a killer. Sheff's cold and determined delivery along with the song's thundering and giddy tempo make the line "And when I killed her it was so easy that I wanted to kill her again" one of the eeriest moments in a rock song ever. He is fascinated by his protagonist and seemingly "turned on" by expressing the dark thoughts in his killer's head. Sheff is revealing his secret: he has felt murder in his heart and it kind of excited him. This is the art of confession, while Sufjan's is the art of sentimental liberal propaganda. Sufjan's opening stanza is the first line of thinking in any defense of this sort of crime. Sufjan's song is preachy; it begs us for our compassion of a tortured soul while Sheff's song makes both his and our own identification with evil tangible. Sheff makes us feel while Sufjan tells us how to feel. Sufjan should stick to stuff like rhyming "great debater" with "great emancipator."

The final lyric in John Wayne Gacy is an afterthought and not representative of the overall message of the song, so I don't see how you can call the song preachy. Sufjan, in his regular way, simplistically recollected a man, nothing more. He painted a picture using simple, broad strokes yet colored it in his usual, unique fashion.

And Sufjan didn't tell us how to feel, he told us, in so many words, that he personally can relate to the evil that lurked in Gacy's heart. The final lyric was simply something Sufjan added for the listener to ponder. He's very good at that.

Clearly your bias towards Okkervil River has clouded your view of one of the greatest artists of our generation. Sufjan is a genius, nuff said. And just so you know Sheff's approach to evil and killing isn't unique either, not by any stretch, so I'll write that point off as irrelevant. It's not about whether or not an idea has been used before, it's about how the artist conveys the idea in his own unique way.

You wouldn't claim that Jackson Pollack is limited in his ideas just because previous painters used the same colors, medium and tools.

What an odd little debate to have suddenly appeared.

Jamieg, it looks like you've thought about this one already and were maybe waiting for someone to bring it up?

Anyway. I'm glad you brought up "Westfall" because the two songs do have connections and beyond that "Westfall" is awesome and I love for a good excuse to listen to it again. But I don't think the two songs are really trying to say the same thing. "Westfall" is about a murderer, but I don't think Sheff is practicing any sort of "art of confession". He's practicing the art of projection. He's writing in the first person, but it's not about Sheff, it's about a character he's choseing to embody. Sure, the story tells us things about Will internally when we realize he has a much deeper understanding of a murderer's mind than we do, but it's still just a character he's writing about. And above all of this, the evil he is discussing is the deep emotionless black hearted type.

Sufjan is doing something different in "John Wayne Gacy Jr.". He's telling a biography of John Gacy in an intimate form in order to make him human, and then drawing a equality between his heartless outward crimes and any other man's inward hidden crimes. Sufjan isn't trying to say he litterally had dead people hidden under his floor boards or that he even is tempted to. He's saying there is no difference between the "horrendous" evil of murder and the "harmless" evil of whatever it is you keep secret.

So one song is trying to bring you to a deeper and chilling understanding of a serial killer and to let you fill his shoes for a moment, and the other is trying to bring you to a realization that one crime as horrible as it might seem is no more evil than any other.

They are both really great songs though.

quote:

Sufjan's is the art of sentimental liberal propaganda.

You maybe sorta had me a little eensy bit before this gem. When talking about platitudes and a lack of novel ideas, it's best not to throw stones in the old glass house. I am by no means a crzy leftist, but sheesh. This is just lazy. Choose your words better. And while I admire Sheff's literary talents once in a while, there is more to songwriting than clever turns of phrase. From a musical standpoint, he has plenty to learn from Stevens, IMO.

When I consider Gacy's story, I feel pain and empathy for a man who developed an uncontrollable appetite for perverse and destructive behavior. I was moved to feel this way, however, not from listening to Sufjan's retelling, but from reading the horrible account in the Wikipedia article about Gacy. What does Sufjan bring to the story that is unique or more moving than the simple details themselves? Someone please tell me. Chaos, the final lyric was added as a way for Sufjan to tell people to look within themselves and see that their own evil is no different. This, however, is not a new idea, and when Sufjan expresses it without specifically addressing his own evil, his words, "I am just like him" fall hollow and he comes across as doing nothing more than moralizing. My comparison of the song "Westfall" was an attempt to provide an example of an artist specifically connecting and identifying with someone's evil. Sheff, at times, can also be heavy-handed, but there are also many powerfully honest and cutting moments in his work. I believe the line I cited, in manner which it is delivered, to be one of them.

And Truth, you are right to point out that "sentimental liberal propaganda" was unfair and not exactly what I was going for.

quote:

Originally posted by Jamieg:
What does Sufjan bring to the story that is unique or more moving than the simple details themselves? Someone please tell me.

Read the lyrics and discover the answer for yourself. Better yet, read them while listening to the song.....

"His father was a drinker
And his mother cried in bed
Folding John Wayne's T-shirts
When the swingset hit his head
The neighbors they adored him
For his humor and his conversation
Look underneath the house there
Find the few living things
Rotting fast in their sleep of the dead
Twenty-seven people, even more
They were boys with their cars, summer jobs
Oh my God

Are you one of them?

He dressed up like a clown for them
With his face paint white and red
And on his best behavior
In a dark room on the bed he kissed them all
He'd kill ten thousand people
With a sleight of his hand
Running far, running fast to the dead
He took off all their clothes for them
He put a cloth on their lips
Quiet hands, quiet kiss
On the mouth

And in my best behavior
I am really just like him
Look beneath the floorboards
For the secrets I have hid"

For me John Wayne Gacy Jr. is a song that is winning because of Sufjan's stellar delivery. Listen to his voice crack on the "Oh my Gooooooddddd" line.

Touching delivery with admitedly silly/mellow dramatic writing, its Sufjan's trademark.

"Westfall" isn't the only attempt by Sheff to try and delve into the mind of murderers - see "The War Criminal Rises and Speaks." In that one, it's even more of a deviant look at it, because Sheff implies that to feel the thrill, even of killing an entire village of women and children, is preferable to living a life of Starbucks and quiet boredom.

quote:

Originally posted by Chamberk:
"Westfall" isn't the only attempt by Sheff to try and delve into the mind of murderers - see "The War Criminal Rises and Speaks." In that one, it's even more of a deviant look at it, because Sheff implies that to feel the thrill, even of killing an entire village of women and children, is preferable to living a life of Starbucks and quiet boredom.

Also it's a great song. The entire theme of Black Sheep Boy is the internal human struggle with good and evil. But it's still all in character form. You can see that Sheff really feels it and the emotion comes out in the music and the delivery, but he hides behind characters so much you can't really read him. It's hard to really know if it's just a hobby or a business to pretend, or if it's really something dark inside of him.

It's catharsis. He channels what is probably a very real anger into his stories and characters. Let's face it, Sheff is a bit of a pissed off at the world bastard; he's pissed off at women, pissed off at Starbucks. "The War Criminal Rises and Speaks" is a good example. He uses the war criminal as a metaphor for the wild human rage he feels has been anesthetized by a consumer driven culture. The song is really a diatribe, but like you say, Shadrach, he "really feels it." He feels it so strongly that the listener feels it also. I know he certainly taps into, but also helps to purge, some of my own hostilities.

quote:

Originally posted by Jamieg:
It's catharsis. He channels what is probably a very real anger into his stories and characters. Let's face it, Sheff is a bit of a pissed off at the world bastard; he's pissed off at women, pissed off at Starbucks. "The War Criminal Rises and Speaks" is a good example. He uses the war criminal as a metaphor for the wild human rage he feels has been anesthetized by a consumer driven culture. The song is really a diatribe, but like you say, Shadrach, he "really feels it." He feels it so strongly that the listener feels it also. I know he certainly taps into, but also helps to purge, some of my own hostilities.

Great post man.

If you want a song that makes you relate to a murderer in the most uncomfortable way, it doesn't seem to get much more pointed than Sun Kil Moon's "Glenn Tipton." The whole song builds a sad slow portrait of this kind of man-child, almost like a sling blade character, and then throws in the last verse about him committing murder, and you still feel that sympathy. The whole thing is first person too. It's got to be one of the best written and delivered songs in recent history.

Pearl Jam's "Jeremy"