Featured Essay: 20 Years of Feeling the Illinoise: Predatory Wasps, Queer Longing, and Spiritual Wonder

by Caleb Cosper

I wouldn’t know and love the music I do today were it not for David and his older brother Ben. David was a close friend of mine: brilliant, funny, handsome, a bit of a goofball. And yes, I did have a crush on him; how could you tell? Ben was a senior when we were freshmen, meaning the three of us overlapped in high school marching band together for one season.

I’ve never asked Ben if he read Pitchfork back then, but it seems obvious in retrospect. His music taste was cool and unlike anything any of my friends were listening to. David offered to load up my iPod with some new music he had learned about from his brother (all totally legally acquired), and it’s no hyperbole to say that it changed my life. I discovered some of my all-time favorite albums and artists from that exchange. Frightened Rabbit’s The Midnight Organ Fight, St. Vincent’s Marry Me, Bon Iver’s For Emma, Forever Ago, and, of course, several Sufjan Stevens albums.

A Sun Came (and went)

I started with A Sun Came, and I don’t think my teenage brain was quite ready for how experimental it was. The trilling and chirruping woodwinds, jangling strings, and lo-fi production that I’ve since come to love as quintessentially Sufjan just didn’t click for me at the time. I returned to the comfort of my Plans CD and didn’t think about Sufjan again for months.

Any indie-leaning Millennial worth their salt will remember what a moment “Little Miss Sunshine” was. Yet again, it was David’s family who introduced this suburban Texas kid to the “cool” culture. We gathered at their home one spring evening to watch the movie, and my ears perked up when the tremulating vibraphone of “Chicago” kicked off the Hoover family’s road trip. David noticed my reaction and reminded me that the album was on my iPod, so I resolved to give Sufjan another try.

Concerning UFO Sightings

The opening milliseconds of Come on Feel the Illinoise draw you in close with the creak of Sufjan leaning forward on his piano bench. After those first clarion-clear chords of “Concerning the UFO Sighting Near Highland, Illinois”, the album shows you what you’re in for with its flying, alien woodwinds, lush vocal harmonies, and mournful falsettos. Seeing the track names take several seconds to scroll across the display of my iPod felt familiar as a fan of From Under the Cork Tree and A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out.

I had developed a deep love for cohesive albums ever since I heard Transatlanticism open and close with the same noise of an engine idling, and Illinoise took cohesion to the next level. You’re telling me this is a concept album about a state and the 2nd of 50? It felt more like reading a novel in the form of music than listening to a series of songs.

The album’s mystical, cosmic sounds ( “A Short Reprise…”, “To the Workers…”, “Out of Egypt…”) somehow blended perfectly with the earthly humanity of the more tender tracks (“John Wayne Gacy, Jr.”, “Casimir Pulaski Day”, “Decatur…”). This alchemy worked especially well for me as an at-the-time Christian reckoning with the contradictions of my faith and queer identity.

“I see the wasp on the length of my arm”

Over halfway through the nearly 75-minute epic, I found what was to me the most important track on the album. The breathy flute cooing as softly as a bird and the spinning synth that open “The Predatory Wasp” cast a spell on me. I didn’t know it was possible for indie rock to be so orchestral, so cinematic, so filled with instruments I had learned to love as a band kid. 

Then, as I listened to the lyrics, my young queer heart exploded.

Oh how I meant to tease him

Oh how I meant no harm

Touching his back with my hand I kiss him

I see the wasp on the length of my arm

Being gay and in the closet in the 2000s, I found myself (as I suspect many others like me did) developing crushes and falling in love with my friends, all of them ostensibly straight. Where else could I have placed my romantic affection when my high school of 1000 or so people had fewer out queer people than I could count on two hands? How I longed to touch my friend on the back with my hand and kiss him.

With the trumpet soaring over the top of the palisades and the chorus shouting “we were in love!”, I ached for love that wasn’t available to me, much like the narrator in the song.

I can’t explain the state that I’m in

The state of my heart, he was my best friend

My friend is gone, he ran away

I can tell you, I love him each day

The lyrics are open to interpretation as to whether they’re about queer love or platonic friendship, but the words felt pulled straight from my heart as the former.

“I come out wearing my brother’s red hat”

In a parallel I’ve only realized while writing this, both David and Sufjan came out of the closet in adulthood. Sufjan’s coming out story was one of tragedy, as so many queer stories sadly are: he dedicated his 2023 album Javelin to his male romantic partner who had passed before the record was released.

In a similar kind of tragedy, I learned that David passed away unexpectedly just a year later. I hadn’t kept in touch with him as much as I wish I had, but every once in a while I would text him to let him know that I still listen to much of the music he introduced me to decades ago. I can’t help but bitterly wonder if David might have heard “The Predatory Wasp” the same way I did if we had been raised in a world and time more accepting of queer identities.

Impossible Souls and Futile Devices

The music of Sufjan Stevens has continued to define my life beyond Illinoise, from “Futile Devices” (which goes on just about every playlist I make for romantic partners) to “Mystery of Love” (talk about queer pining!) to Songs for Christmas (my most listened to album of all time given that I have it on repeat every December).

The bond created by sharing music you love with someone you love is holy. Until the day I die, I know I’ll remember David and Ben with fond gratitude for how they influenced my love of music. In David’s memory, I’d ask that you reach out to someone who introduced you to an artist you love and tell them thanks. 

Because remember, as Sufjan Stevens tells us with love and sorrow on “Fourth of July,” someday: 

We’re all gonna die

Caleb Cosper is based in Seattle, WA, going to as many shows as he can and moshing at every one of them where it makes sense (and some where it doesn’t). You can read his other, non-music writing at the RicketyRoo blog.