Sufjan Stevens has released a new track, “Wallowa Lake Monster”, due out later this year on The Greatest Gift mixtape.
The Greatest Gift, a collection of outtakes, remixes and demos from Stevens’ lauded 2015 album Carrie & Lowell, is set for release on yellow cassette, translucent yellow vinyl and all digital formats on November 24. Pre-order it here. A portion of the proceeds from the release will benefit the Cancer Support Community.
Further new music from Stevens is featured in Luca Guadagnino’s highly anticipated film Call Me By Your Name starring Armie Hammer and Timothée Chalamet, out November 24.
It’s a beautiful song and stay on until the ending crescendo…
As if you know the story of Wallowa Lake:
Leviathan first hid in the deep where her children sleep
She kept them hidden from the plague
But have you heard the story of my mother’s fate?
She left us in Detroit in the rain with a pillow case
Fortune for the paper weight
We followed her to Joseph, near the Indian raid
She wept among the weeds, hide and seek, for the fallen chief
Spathiphyllum on his grave
And like the cedar wax wing, she was drunk all day
We put her in the sheet, little wreath, candles on the crate
As the monster showed its face
As she waits for her children in the shade
Demogorgon or demigod the ghost parade
No oblation will bring her back to our place
She stayed within the deep end of Wallowa Lake
The undertow refrained with the flame of a feathered snake
Charybdis in its shallow grave
She gave us one last feature: the fullness of her face
In the shade of “Hin-mah-too-yah…” (Red Napoleon)
As the demon took her place
As we wait for the waters to reside
Her remarkable stoicism and her pride
When the dragon submerged we knew she had died
