Shedding Light on Illuminations by Buffy Sainte-Marie
lluminations is a psychedelic folk album full of early electronic experimentation. It was released by the oft-forgotten but influential Buffy Sainte-Marie in 1969.
Sainte-Marie is a trailblazer in terms of music technology. She is the first musician to release an album with vocals processed by a Buchla 100 synthesizer and to make an album using an early version of surround sound called quadratic technology. Sainte-Marie recalls that the equipment was so new it didn’t yet include a keyboard.
The looping lyrics and sounds echo throughout the album, allowing listeners to get lost in the ambient drones and reverberations. The electronic editions resonate perfectly with Sainte-Marie’s vibrant tremolo and vibrato techniques. Sainte-Marie’s voice is dynamic and distinctive. Whether she is singing strong and fast or soft and slow, she is always in control. Her voice is birdlike; warbling, soaring, and delicate as a wing.
The lyrics are full of mystical and natural imagery. Over the course of the album we travel to a vampire’s lair, the garden of Eden, a Paris hotel, and everywhere in between. The songs also span a vast area stylistically.
Sainte-Marie’s vocals drip with venom in “With You, Honey”. She belts and burns through “He’s A Keeper Of The Fire” and “Better Find Out For Yourself”. These songs are the most upbeat of the album and share a certain rocky sensibility.
“The Dream Tree'' is a standout folk ballad. Sainte-Marie seems to be plucking at heart strings instead of an acoustic guitar as she sings her lamentations and longing.
The most popular songs from the album are “Guess Who I Saw In Paris” and “God Is Alive Magic is Afoot,” and they couldn’t be more different.
“Guess Who I Saw In Paris” is a sweet and simple love song made to be hummed from a balcony. The dreamlike song fades in and out of an ephemeral affair. It is evocative of Édith Piaf, who Sainte-Marie sights as an influence on her vocal techniques.
“God Is Alive And Magic Is Afoot” makes ample use of electronic additions. The intro sounds like the dripping stalactite of an ancient cave (the same sound can be found at the end of “Poppies”, allowing the album to be played in a seamless loop). Repetition of the words “God” and “Magic” ripple throughout the song. Sainte-Marie seems to be singing a round all by herself. The lyrics invoke an incantation. Their poeticism and political messages are potent.
The most explicitly political song on the album is “Suffer The Little Children.” Sainte-Marie makes her critiques of education under capitalism with lyrics like “School bell go ‘Ding! Dong! Ding!’ / The children all line up / They do what they are told / Take a little drink from the liar’s cup” and “Just teach them not to criticize / Say ‘Yes’ to bosses, impress the clients.”
Throughout her career as a musician and activist, Saint-Marie has consistently been an advocate for education, particularly for and about the Native American community. She established the Nihewan Foundation for American Indian Education (later called the Nihewan Foundation for Native American Education) in 1969 and the Cradleboard Teaching Project in the mid 1990s (which sought to make curricula more culturally sensitive.)
Other lyrics in the song, like “Teach them that evil dwells across the sea” seem to allude to the Vietnam War. Sainte-Marie was staunchly opposed to the Vietnam War. This stance, as well as her support of the American Indian Movement, led to her being blacklisted by the Johnson and Nixon administrations. She was barred from receiving gigs and radio airtime.
Sainte-Marie’s sound was certainly experimental and ahead of its time, but her blacklisting is to blame for the obscurity Illuminations was cast into. The album holds a place in music history that is irrevocable, regardless of its insufficient praise.
In spite of it all, Sainte-Marie is still making music. Her latest album, Medicine songs, was released in 2017. A documentary about her entitled Buffy Sainte-Marie: Carry It On was released in November of 2022.
Words: Celia Shanley
