Chicago

“Chicago” is the centerpiece of Illinois and the closest Sufjan Stevens has come to writing an anthem. Strings and horns and a backing chorus and Stevens moving through a verse about driving to Chicago with no money and being too young to know it was going to mean anything — and then the refrain, which is one of the most earnestly triumphant moments in his catalog.

The song has the specific clarity of a cold morning when the year has turned and you suddenly remember how far you’ve come. The chorus is its own weather event. “I made a lot of mistakes,” he sings, and the strings lift the admission into something that sounds like a coronation. The year has turned. You survived the summer. Put it on.