"Should Have Known Better" by Sufjan Stevens, Tuesday, May 11, 2021 (Trigger Warning: Child Abuse/Abandonment, Death/Grief)
In March of 2015, Sufjan Stevens released Carrie & Lowell , and the album was praised by indie music journals and NPR. In May of that year, a study concluded that most of the number one hits from 2005-2014 were written on the reading level of a fifth grader. Maybe that's the reason I don't spend too much time wrestling with finding the meaning of the text in most song lyrics. However, whenever I choose a Sufjan Stevens song, I spend quite a bit of time reading the Genius annotations, discovering hidden metaphors and symbolism that don't appear until quite a few listens. " Should Have Known Better " is the second track on the album, following his invocation of the muse in " Death with Dignity. " Stevens recalls more specific, particularly the jarring details about whe n his mother "left [him and his brother] at that video store" when he was three or four. THE PAST IS STILL THE PAST, THE BRIDGE TO NOWHERE. As Stevens gets more speci