REVIEW: Sufjan Stevens' Carrie and Lowell, Ten Years Later

Ten years after its release, I revisit Sufjan Stevens' Carrie and Lowell, an album about his late mother's mental illness, abandonment, and grief, that's held up a clear, honest mirror to my own life. I trace how Stevens' songwriting about Carrie evolved from anger on Michigan and Illinois to unconditional forgiveness, dig into the many alternate versions of 'Fourth of July,' and reproduce my very first attempt at music criticism: a Carrie and Lowell review I wrote as a teenager back in 2015.