“Should Have Known Better” by Sufjan Stevens

"Should Have Known Better" sits second on Carrie & Lowell, Sufjan Stevens' seventh studio album, and Asthmatic Kitty issued it digitally as a single on March 11, 2015. Stevens wrote it alone, and it starts in the rawest place imaginable: a boy of three or four, left behind by Carrie at a video store.

For most of its length he sings it barely above a whisper, as if afraid of waking something. Then, as Pitchfork's review described it, a bright electric keyboard figure arrives halfway through, a quiet tap of percussion urges him forward, and his voice stacks up into a chorus of itself, the grief loosening into something close to hope. Pitchfork named it Best New Track on release, and critics were broadly warm.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.