Sufjan Stevens‘ talents have always resided in turning any sized audience into active listeners. He is a brilliant writer, first and foremost, and that is why his music has always transcended the orchestral inflected folk he is most known for (though he has myriad other projects that speak to his impossibly polymathic versatility as a musician and songwriter). It’s perhaps more accurate to think of him as an author, creating folklores, mythologies, and paeans to entire regions.

However, on his forthcoming LP, Carrie & Lowell, Stevens tackles autobiography in what will surely be tagged as his “most personal record yet” by countless PR firms, probably prohibited from mentioning that this record will also be painful. Painful for its real losses (Carrie was Stevens’ schizophrenic, drug dependent mother who abandoned him as a child), painful for its self realizations (he grew to love the idea of her anyway), and painful by virtue of the fact that even his delicate instrumentation and ever-youthful coos will do nothing to mollify these moments.

Let us know what you think about this new single and if you’re also crying right now.