"Man of Metropolis" (I'm not typing that whole name out. It's a great song, but a stupid name.) is a lot like "Read My Mind" in that 1) it conveys a sense of going somewhere and 2) I could've put any one of four or five songs from this album on this list.
I have no idea if this is how Sufjan intended it, but I view Illinois as a suite of four long, sweeping songs: "Come on, Feel the Illinoise!" (which has a bunch more to the title but I'm not saying it); "Chicago," "Man of Metropolis," and "The Tallest Man, the Broadest Shoulders" (which also has a subtitle that's longer than the song itself--come on, dude, this is some serious twee hipster horseshit and I'm trying really hard here, but you've got to meet me in the middle at some point).
I like a lot of what comes between those four songs, but that was always the ballgame for me--26 minutes of feeling like you're playing the piano on the back of a flatbed trailer while wearing either a marching band uniform or a Polyphonic Spree robe (maybe both?) with the wind flowing through your hair as you book it down to Urbana or some shit.
If the Long-Ass Song Suite is a lap of the state, "Man of Metropolis" starts out like a wild night out at...wherever people go out in Chicago...and alternates between crunching electric guitar and wistful, lilting solo trumpet and choir. It's a fantastic contrast between Sufjan's traditional spaced-out folkish stuff and, essentially, the intro to David Bowie's "Heroes."
Finally, and most importantly, I dare you to listen to that chorus (the "Only a steel man came to recover..." bit) and not whistle it aloud to yourself for days and days and days. It's probably the earwormiest part of an album that's big on creativity, but short on earworminess.
