There are a few bands I’ve been friends with throughout my life and release music when I grow and change. One such artist Bon Iverand their latest release, Sable, F story, It’s another part of that journey.
Those who followed the indie groups full of Justin Vernon know that the atmosphere of Bon Iver tends to be on the sad side. Vernon’s lyrics are often inexplicable yet deeply inspiring. The content of Bon Iver’s music is felt and experienced more than it is understood. Move from peeled acoustic tracks For Emma, ​​forever Lush, more fulfilling sound Self-Titled Album More electronic 22, million and Me, me Everyone can convey the depth of this soulful emotion, regardless of this genre.
I fell in love because I was biased towards Bon Iver’s previous iterations. Sable ep When it was released last October. The color referenced in the title of the EP is near black, released in the fall, with falling leaves showing signs of this year’s collapse, which was a coincidence. Comment on this EP in an interview, Vernon I said:
Sable was this dark black colour, and it began to become a cartoon of the almost sad Bon Iver music. I really love the songs, but they were like these final moments. This feels like a return, but since it’s an update, I just want to be sad, this is for you.
What Bon Iver does with this album is that he moves from nihilism to the affirmation that life is really good, and there is love, joy and hope.
For Vernon, a dark and beautiful song Sable It was a kind of death, the “last gasp breath” of his previous self. Vernon later describes his musical contributions in religious terms. He speaks of the sacrifice that such meditation on the vulnerability of life and the heartbreak of existence took on him. He then continued, “If there is a gift I have, it seems to bring this church sense to people. And I love nothing but trying to give that spirit to the church that places it outside the church. There is space in this deadly life for sorrow and lament, and music like Bon Iver reminds us that we are not alone in grief. Still, it is taxing to be such a public symbol of grief.
There was no choice but to replay the three songs that made up the EP over and over again. I was particularly drawn to the track “Speyside” sung by Vernon.
It helps to suffer and puncture my legs
And I hope you can see
When I fill my book
Ah, what a waste of wood
Nothing really happened as I thought
The song is introspective, miserable, with regret and frustration. It is not a critique of the world as much as sadness over the real tragedy we encounter just as humans. Vernon doesn’t say, “Nothing really happened as I thought I should,” but rather “as I thought.” I’ll do it. “Vernon wasn’t trying to force outcomes, but life is still full of disappointment.
“Bon Iver” comes from the French for a “good winter” and talks about the cold, isolated sadness that he grew up in Vernon, as he wrote. For Emma, ​​forever. I’ve never heard Vernon mention it, but I’m amazed at the meaning of the French word Sablecan be translated as “sand”. That’s exactly what these songs come to mind, and it’s notoriously difficult to shift and hold your own hand before it slips. Or, to take another image, remind us that life is fleeting and for our humans it is “a few days” because of the sand sucking up through the middle of the hourglass. [our] A wasteful life… [pass] Like a shadow” (Ecclesiastes 6:12).
In addition to the shortness and uncertainty of our lives, we often reach our own way and trip ourselves up. In “Speyside”, Vernon Croons:
Yes, what’s wrong with me?
Man, sorry
I got my best
These first tracks have a confession Sable, F story. “Confession” does not simply mean what Vernon is sharing about his life, but it means that this is guilt, a kind of repentance. These tracks reflect some of Vernon’s own personal struggles. In him New York Times In an interview, he says, “It’s like “Sable” is about a young man who stays in the dark.” And that’s not a way to live. Here Vernon is full of hope.
Darkness is not a way to live. But love is. And what Bon Iver does on this album is to move from nihilism to the affirmation that life is really good, there is love, joy and hope. The album’s turn is featured on the track “Short Story” with Casey Hill. Vernon sings, “January is not the whole world.” This reminds us that after winter comes, that new life can emerge from grief and death. Vernon sings when the track is over.
It’s the first thing you can see
Time is soothing, then repeat
You will never be perfect
And tension and thirst are sweet
You’re not too deep yet
These lines celebrate life as it comes. It’s not perfect (“You will never be perfect”), yet “tension and thirst are sweet.” It’s good to live even the sometimes troubled lives we lead. It’s good to be alive. There is a sweetness to be celebrated.
It’s a groovy “all peaceful love” with a chorus that immediately follows “All little things are love and right with me.” The rest of the song’s lyrics are clearly more vague, but the feel of the album from now on is subtle and hopeful, even if it’s not always lyrically obvious. But Breezy and Hopeful are not Glib. And even if he clearly leaves behind the darkness of the first few tracks of the album, he still has a longing for Vernon’s voice, ongoing search.
As Heard Vernon talks about his latest album, I get the sense that it comes from a place of calm wholeness more than anything else he’s ever written. Is that the case of Vernon saying more than he knows? He is not a Christian, but as a priest who has just traveled through Holy Week of Lent, and towards the Easter Tide, it is hard not to notice the resonance of Christianity on this album journey. Is it somehow raised in a new life, reflecting the suffering death of Christ?
There’s a truth that Vernon should have known. Christ truly dies, rises, rises again. All the little things are love, but it is because we have been told to exist by God, who is love. Without understanding these truths (as far as I know), I think I can feel and even be refracted by the reverberation of the great things God has given to Christ. Sable, F story.
