The 90th Academy Awards had a number of highlights, one of which was when Sufjan Stevens made everyone at the Oscars cry with his performance of ‘Mystery Of Love’.
But as great as it was to hear and see the beautiful theme song from Call Me By Your Name being performed live, it seems like the performance – and that night at the Oscars in general – was anything but beautiful for Stevens,
Chatting to The Guardian about his magical new album The Ascension, Sufjan Stevens straight up called his evening at the 2018 Oscars ceremony “one of the most traumatising experiences of [his] entire life.”
Now it wasn’t one of those “traumatising experiences” born out of sheer happiness due to all the glitz and glamour.
Nope, it was purely down to distain of everything around him as the Oscars as, as Stevens says, “a horrifying Scientology end-of-year prom” that is representative of “everything I hate about America and popular culture.”
Ouch.
Elaborating just why his night at the Oscars sucked, the songwriter says: “I didn’t want to have anything to do with that world and that culture.”
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“I don’t want to be part of any room full of adults hemming and hawing over plastic trophies.”
For all the beautiful music he puts out, Sufjan Stevens is in reality a pretty pessimistic person according to himself.
Case in point: when asked by The Guardian about how optimistic he should be about the upcoming 2020 U.S. presidential election, Stevens quips, “What gives me hope? Oh God. Diazepam! Lithium!”
But having said all this pessimistic stuff about the Oscars and the election, Stevens does have some news of the glass half-full sort. Apparently he’s spent lockdown working on new tunes that will “be another left turn in a career full of them.”
In true Sufjan Stevens fashion though, he warns fans to not expect any pop crossovers or anything, saying “I don’t have the constitution for something like that. If Kanye calls, I’m not home, OK?” he said.
And on that note, it seems pretty fitting to end this article on Stevens’ ‘Mystery Of Love’ Oscars performance since that seems to be the his vibe at the moment.
Check out ‘Mystery Of Love’ by Sufjan Stevens at the Oscars:
