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Chicago (2005 song)

"Chicago"
Chicago (Demo) (Front Cover).png
Demo artwork
Song by Sufjan Stevens
from the album Illinois
Language English
Released July 5, 2005 (2005-07-05)
Genre Indie folk, baroque pop
Length 6:04
Label Asthmatic Kitty
Songwriter(s) Sufjan Stevens
Illinois track listing
"One Last "Whoo-Hoo!" for the Pullman"
(8)
"Chicago"
(9)
"Casimir Pulaski Day"
(10)
Four alternate versions, three featured on The Avalanche, and one demo recorded in 2004:

"Acoustic" (4:40)
"Adult Contemporary Easy Listening Version" (6:06)
"Multiple Personality Disorder Version" (4:35)
"(Demo)" (4:08)

"Chicago" ("Go! Chicago! Go! Yeah!" on the vinyl edition) is a track from Sufjan Stevens 2005 concept album Illinois, released on Asthmatic Kitty. The song tells the semi-autobiographical story of a young man on a road trip, and his youthful idealism. The track is one of Stevens' most popular songs, and he usually ends his live shows with a version of this song. The song has been recorded in five different versions by Stevens himself, the versions not on Illinois being included on the collection The Avalanche, and one demo released digitally on Stevens' website, to be released as a 12" single bundled with the "Illinois: Special 10th Anniversary Blue Marvel Edition". The track has also been sampled by Chiddy Bang on their single "All Things Go".

In the process of making the second album in his ambitious Fifty States Project, which involved recording an album for each of the states of America, Stevens had committed a large amount of time to researching the people and history of Illinois. However this track is one of the most autobiographical on the album. Sufjan Stevens states in interviews around the release, that, "I've had quite a few exceptional and traumatic experiences in Illinois, a few times when visiting Chicago at a particularly difficult time in my life or driving cross country and being pulled over by the cops just outside Peoria," and that he saw his first rock show there. However, he self-deprecatingly qualifies the story of the song as only being partly true, stating, "The writer is the inventor, the designer, the creative force behind a body of work. The author is the actual man or woman, in reality, in society, in person. I like Woody Allen the director/writer, circa 1975, but I doubt I would like Woody Allen the person, circa 1975." Stevens also cited the poem "Chicago" by Carl Sandburg as an influence on the track, and had intended to include a track about Saul Bellow on Illinois, but could not find a way to adequately cover the writer.


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