By
Jesse Kornbluth
Published: Jun 30, 2011
Category:
Rock
There comes a moment in social evenings when I tell guests who do not know my wife’s story how, long before she came to New York, she consistently took home purple ribbons for her pigs in 4-H club competitions and then won a larger sash of her own when she was named “Miss Brainerd.” Saint that she is, she endures this tour of her Minnesota childhood. But she draws the line at Bon Iver.
The man. The look. The sound. Everything. Justin Vernon — the Wisconsin-based singer/songwriter who records as Bon Iver — is, simply, dead to her.
At the start, it wasn’t the music that set her off. When I played For Emma, Forever Ago, she tolerated the eccentricity: upper-octave Beach Boys harmonies set against wintry emotions. But then I bought tickets for a Bon Iver concert at Town Hall.
Picture this seating. On one side, Ruth Ansel, the legendary magazine designer. On the other, my wife. Surrounding us, young men in trim beards, pressed flannel shirts, jeans and wool caps — Jesus-types, versions of every guy my wife went out with in her North Country days.
Bon Iver takes the stage. The band has one sound and eleven songs. Ruth is enthralled. My wife hisses: “Fraud.” I turn from one to another, unable to split the difference.
And that was the end of Bon Iver’s music in our home while my wife is within hearing range.
Too bad. “For Emma” is a catalogue of the ways love can rip your skin off. It’s sad and personal, intimate as a confessional — I can’t hear it without sighing at all the love I’ve let slip through my fingers. It’s exquisite.
“For Emma” is both a beginning and a dead end; beyond it lies shtick. I am thrilled to report that Vernon turned back. In the new release — titled simply “Bon Iver” — he has purged his grief, and the energy level of these ten songs is the proof. There are military drums. Guitars that no longer whisper. Even a kid’s choir. Considered simply as music, it’s compelling. [To buy the CD from Amazon for $7.99, click here. For the $7.99 MP3 download, click here.]
The lyrics — that’s another story. I printed some out. And thought: gibberish.. A put-on. At best, Joycean word play. The words are just riding shotgun for the voice.
But that’s too easy.
So I listened to one song — “Calgary” — as I read the lyrics.
Don’t you cherish me to sleep
Never keep your eyelids clipped
Hold me for the pops and clicks
I was only for the father’s crib
Hair, old, long along
Your neck onto your shoulder blades
Always keep that message taped
Cross your breasts you won’t erase
I was only for your very space
Hip, under nothing
Propped up by your other one, face ‘way from the sun
Just have to keep a dialogue
Teach our bodies: haunt the cause
I was only trying to spell a loss
Joy, it’s all founded
Pincher with the skin inside
You pinned me with your black sphere eyes
You know that all the rope’s untied
I was only for to die beside
So itʼs storming on the lake
Little waves our bodies break
There’s a fire going out,
But there’s really nothing to the south
Swollen orange and light let through
Your one piece swimmer stuck to you
Sold, I’m Ever
Open ears and open eyes
Wake up to your starboard bride
Who goes in and then stays inside
Oh the demons come, they can subside…
See anything? Feel anything? I can’t claim to have penetrated the song’s deepest insights — I’m still not sure there are any. (About another song, “Beth/Rest,” Vernon says, “It’s definitely the part where you pick up your joint and re-light it.”) It reads more like a swirl from Dylan’s late-middle period, words that create a mood if not a meaning. And the little detonations in the lyrics are – duh — precisely keyed to the music. (Notice what happened around the line “Joy it’s all founded.”)
For me, the whole CD pivots on the four years — and the light years — between “For Emma” and “Joy, it’s all founded.” Wake up my starboard bride? Let demons subside? With pleasure.
With any cultural product, you get what you get. With Justin Vernon, you can get “cult artist” and “gimmicky” and “one trick pony.” You can see an innovator, moving things gently forward. Or you can just close your eyes and, in the darkness, watch your inner movie.
If I had to choose one word to describe this music, I’d go with “ineffable.”
