{"id":12486,"date":"2026-01-14T17:50:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T17:50:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/?p=12486"},"modified":"2026-05-13T17:30:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T17:30:10","slug":"good-winter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/2026\/01\/14\/good-winter\/","title":{"rendered":"Good Winter"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Good Winter<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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The arc of the Midwest indie project Bon Iver, now potentially complete, is long and winding but finds its clearest expression in Christ. <\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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By Will Bryant<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Midwinter spring is its own season \u2026When the short day is brightest, with frost and fire \u2014 <\/em>T.S. Eliot, \u201cLittle Gidding\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>

The story is a clich\u00e9 at this point. Almost performative. Burned by a breakup and nursing a bad case of mono, a Midwestern folk singer named Justin Vernon retreats to a cabin in the cold Wisconsin winter with nothing but a mic and a resonator guitar. What emerges is the breakup album of breakup albums, spidersilk ballads and mournful horns and a howling falsetto set to lyrics more heartsick than legible. This is <\/span>For Emma, Forever Ago<\/span><\/i>, the first album from Bon Iver, at this point in 2007 Vernon\u2019s solo musical project.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

For Emma<\/span><\/i>\u2019s<\/span> gutwrenching single \u201cSkinny Love\u201d went viral and Vernon played Letterman, but the album couldn\u2019t get out from under its own overwrought storybook origins. Pitchfork<\/em>\u2019s 2007 review begins hypocritically, \u201cThe biographical details behind the creation of an album shouldn\u2019t matter when it comes to a listener\u2019s enjoyment\u2026\u201d before spelling out in detail Vernon\u2019s biography and the dramatic retreat to the cabin.<\/span><\/p>

After the vatic and intense 2008 EP <\/span>Blood Bank, <\/span><\/i>the project\u2019s second full album <\/span>Bon Iver, Bon Iver <\/span><\/i>saw Vernon expand the band and garner his first critical success with a Grammy in 2012. The self-titled album is lush and percussive, an instant shibboleth for Midwestern indie music and a recapitulation of Vernon\u2019s early work as a part of the Durham-based group DeYarmond Edison. Without a breakup to provide a framework as on <\/span>For Emma<\/span><\/i>, the lyrics were cryptic at best and gibberish most of the time. For those with ears to hear, \u201cHinnom, TX\u201d opened a religious conversation Vernon would continue on Bon Iver\u2019s next album. The album\u2019s second single \u201cHolocene\u201d was a certified platinum hit and the band, now comprising Vernon and several others, hit the road for a world tour.<\/span><\/p>

But all was not well under the surface. Vernon couldn\u2019t shake the pain of reliving <\/span>For Emma<\/span><\/i> every night in front of sold-out crowds. After the tour wrapped in Dublin, speculation flourished that the band\u2019s last show had passed. Vernon slow-walked his stress. Only in subsequent interviews would he disclose the turmoil he felt during the self-titled tour.<\/span><\/p>

After writing only one song in five years \u2013 the irreverently holyrolling \u201cHeavenly Father\u201d \u2013 Bon Iver returned in 2016 with its third album, <\/span>22, A Million<\/span><\/i>. Watchers <\/span>noted<\/span><\/a> \u201can unexpected turn toward the strange and experimental.\u201d Closer watchers noted <\/span>22<\/span><\/i>\u2019s continuity with the experimental elements of the <\/span>Blood Bank<\/span><\/i> EP and with Vernon\u2019s longheld fascination with the religious and the esoteric. He had majored in religious studies in college with a focus on Gnosticism, no doubt thanks in part to the popularizing labors of the historian Elaine Pagels whose widely read book on the Gospel of Thomas was published the year Vernon graduated. <\/span>22<\/span><\/i>\u2019s numerology is its clearest connection with the Gnostics, with titles like \u201c33 \u2018God\u2019\u201d and \u201c666 \u0287.\u201d The album also plays with symbology in the song titles \u2013 \u201c22 (OVER S\u221e\u221eN)\u201d and \u201c715 – CR\u03a3\u03a3KS\u201d \u2013 and in the album art by Eric Timothy Carlson which contains all manner of mysterious pictograms the tamest of which would strike fear in the heart of any Satanic Panic-stricken suburban Baptist mother.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

For all its religious experimentation <\/span>22<\/span><\/i>\u2019s reception was positive. Most explained away the weirdness and fervor as a product of the stress Vernon had undergone after <\/span>Bon Iver, Bon Iver<\/span><\/i>. The lyrics were as delectably inscrutable as ever, and even if <\/span>22 <\/span><\/i>wasn\u2019t happy, at all really, at least it wasn\u2019t <\/span>For Emma<\/span><\/i>\u2019s overdone Midwestern sadness.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

The newness continued on 2019\u2019s <\/span>i,i<\/span><\/i>, a calmer and more hopeful take on <\/span>22<\/span><\/i>\u2019s sample-driven electronica. Religious questions remained, but with less of an edge. <\/span>22<\/span><\/i>\u2019s Vernon was haunted and yelling and quoting Psalm 22, but on <\/span>i,i <\/span><\/i>he seems at peace, even sheepish at his previous psychotic rambling. This fourth album was received by critics as a glad move away from the solipsism that had plagued the first three records.<\/span><\/p>

Bon Iver\u2019s 2025 <\/span>SABLE, fABLE<\/span><\/i> brings us to the present and continues the happy trend. After an interlude of darker musings on fame and a nostalgic sad-boy-with-guitar victory lap released as the standalone EP <\/span>SABLE<\/span><\/i>, this fifth full album is joyous and uptempo, the first stuff ever from Bon Iver that could pass as danceable. And the lyrics are shockingly legible. For the first time Vernon sings conversationally, \u201cWhen I called you from the hotel \/ You said you were doing well.\u201d <\/span>SABLE, fABLE <\/span><\/i>is Vernon\u2019s most conscious statement yet of an emotional distance between him and the past self that wrote Bon Iver\u2019s first three records. And it may be his last album under the project. The closing track on the album is \u201cAu Revoir,\u201d a parting play on the French origins of \u201cBon Iver,\u201d and in interviews Vernon is candid about the possibility that he may not make another.<\/span><\/p>

If <\/span>SABLE, fABLE<\/span><\/i> is indeed the end of Bon Iver, then Vernon has left us a coherent canon of five albums. Though the sonic palette evolved from <\/span>For Emma <\/span><\/i>to <\/span>SABLE, fABLE<\/span><\/i>, Vernon\u2019s lyrics remained focused. If you spend any time reading <\/span>Pitchfork <\/span><\/i>reviews of Vernon\u2019s work or listening to <\/span>New York Times<\/span><\/i> music podcasts, you\u2019ll discover the typical reading of the Bon Iver discography, and it goes something like this: the project was born in <\/span>For Emma<\/span><\/i>\u2019s elegiac suffering, matured into the self-titled\u2019s muted sonic depth, faced an anxiety-driven spiritual crisis on <\/span>22<\/span><\/i>, and finally abandoned the self-torture for peace, love, and good vibes on the final two albums.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

This narrative is wrong. It unfairly flattens the first two albums as fundamentally sad and the last two albums as fundamentally happy, and it struggles to explain the third album, <\/span>22,<\/span><\/i> which is too moody and haunted to be classed with the latter two albums and too experimental and ambitious for the first two. In place of the typical account, we\u2019ll test out a new narrative that uses <\/span>22 <\/span><\/i>as the key to interpret all five albums. The first two albums, <\/span>For Emma <\/span><\/i>and the self-titled, wrestle with questions about history, geography, sacrifice, and redemption that receive their clearest (and most Christ-centered) articulation on <\/span>22<\/span><\/i>, and <\/span>22 <\/span><\/i>begins answers to these questions that are expanded on <\/span>i,i <\/span><\/i>and <\/span>SABLE, fABLE<\/span><\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Vernon is simultaneously excavating his painful past and seeking newness, redemption, a fresh start.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Today is Qumran<\/span><\/i><\/p>

If we manage to look past the haze of sadness that clouds <\/span>For Emma <\/span><\/i>in the popular imagination, we\u2019ll find Vernon questioning the history of his breakup, processing his lonesome pain, and searching for redemption on the album\u2019s historiographical coda \u201cre: Stacks.\u201d The chorus to the album\u2019s second song \u201cLump Sum\u201d sings, \u201cFit it all, fit it in the doldrums \/ Or so the story goes \/ Color the era \/ Film it as historical.\u201d Already Vernon is attempting to reclaim the history of his relationship with Emma and to relegate it to the \u201cdoldrums,\u201d the garbage time of history. So far, though, he\u2019s been unsuccessful, and he ends the song with a downer, \u201cWe will see when it gets warm.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Next comes the downer of downers, \u201cSkinny Love,\u201d and then \u201cThe Wolves (Act I And II)\u201d and \u201cBlindsided\u201d which are Vernon\u2019s clearest expression of the loneliness he suffered in the cabin in Wisconsin. He opens \u201cThe Wolves\u201d singing vengefully \u201cSomeday my pain will mark you \/ Solace my game, it stars you\u201d and an extended outro repeats the lines \u201cWhat might have been lost \/ Don\u2019t bother me.\u201d The bridge to \u201cBlindsided\u201d repeats the loneliest line, \u201cWould you really rush out?\u201d and there is no respite from the isolation on the next two songs \u201cCreature Fear\u201d and \u201cFor Emma.\u201d Across the album, Vernon is struggling to get out from under the lonely pain of the breakup.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

But he is no helplessly heartsick lover, as the conventional narrative would have it. On <\/span>For Emma <\/span><\/i>Vernon is already searching for redemption, whether through revision on \u201cLump Sum\u201d or revenge on \u201cThe Wolves.\u201d The album\u2019s final song \u201cre: Stacks\u201d sees Vernon at his clearest and most mature, the closest yet to getting over the breakup. The song is also the most religious on <\/span>For Emma<\/span><\/i>, opening with a reference to the cave where the Dead Sea Scrolls \u2013 a key artifact for the revival of interest in Gnosticism \u2013 were found: \u201cThis my excavation and today is Qumran \/ Everything that happens is from now on.\u201d This line contains the whole album in microcosm. Vernon is simultaneously excavating his painful past and seeking newness, redemption, a fresh start. If you sift the gibberish, the chorus has Vernon unloading the weight of the breakup: \u201cIn the back with your racks and \/ you\u2019re unstacking your load.\u201d The final verse of the song, and the final words on the album, are the most optimistic yet: \u201cThis is not the sound of a new man \/ or crispy realisation \/ It’s the sound of the unlocking and \/ the lift away \/ Your love will be \/ Safe with me.\u201d Finally Vernon can see himself \u201cunlocking\u201d from his past without papering over his pain with \u201cthe sound of a new man\u201d or \u201ca crispy realization.\u201d He is optimistic about this solution but short on the details of how he will accomplish it, saying only \u201cYour love will be safe with me.\u201d For the first time on the album, Vernon can find safety and comfort in the fact that Emma, for all the pain she\u2019s caused, will remain with him. This redemptive unification, not in spite of loss but <\/span>through it<\/span><\/i>, will stick with Vernon and receive an emphatic religious treatment on <\/span>22. <\/span><\/i><\/p>

In Hinnom<\/span><\/i><\/p>

On the self-titled album Vernon makes the important move of abstracting away from <\/span>For Emma<\/span><\/i>\u2019s breakup, but his focus on history, pain, and redemption remains. He uses place names in song titles \u2013 \u201cPerth,\u201d \u201cMinnesota, WI,\u201d \u201cHinnom, TX,\u201d \u201cLisbon, OH,\u201d \u201cCalgary\u201d \u2013 as a way to continue to explore the geographic entrapment he felt on <\/span>For Emma<\/span><\/i>, but removed from the context of the breakup. His lyrics on these songs are weird but specific. It\u2019s possible to identify concrete places, events, and people, even if the narrative is nonsensical. On “Holocene,” for example: \u201cYou’re laying waste to Halloween \/ You fucked it friend \/ It’s on its head \/ It struck the street \/ You’re in Milwaukee, off your feet.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Lyrical moments suggest that Vernon has started to see distance between himself and the pain of <\/span>For Emma<\/span><\/i>. On \u201cMinnesota, WI,\u201d he sings, \u201cWater’s running through in the valley \/ where we grew to write this \/ scripture,\u201d and “Holocene” opens, \u201cSomeway, baby, it’s part of me \/ apart from me.\u201d There are signs of distance and redemption: water and life has returned to Vernon\u2019s valley of the shadow of death. But Vernon doesn\u2019t abandon his history, in keeping with his maxim from \u201cre: Stacks\u201d: \u201cthis is not the sound of a new man.\u201d He recognizes that there had been revelation \u2013 \u201cscripture\u201d \u2013 in the dark valley, and that the pain that is \u201capart from\u201d him is nonetheless still \u201ca part of\u201d him. Again, Vernon\u2019s redemption comes not in spite of suffering but <\/span>through it<\/span><\/i>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

On \u201cHinnom, TX\u201d Vernon explores redemption from an explicitly religious angle for the first time. Don\u2019t be fooled by the title: Hinnom is not a town in Texas, it is a valley south of Jerusalem where residents maintained a perpetual garbage fire for the city\u2019s trash. As a result, the word became synonymous with \u201chell,\u201d now the typical biblical translation for \u201chinnom\u201d from Hebrew. The Texas reference likely comes rather from a lyric in the song\u2019s second verse, \u201cI got outta La Grange,\u201d an allusion to a Lucina Williams song where she celebrates leaving the Texas town of La Grange and \u201cburying the stranger inside of her,\u201d according to Vernon. The song \u201cHinnom, TX\u201d is focused on redemption and ritual, the first verse opening with \u201cIn the first of light \/ Past the Noachide \/ Bodies wrapped in white \/ Stranded every pain \/ Baby, pasts are slain \/ I got outta La Grange.\u201d The Noachide are a religious group who follow the Noahic covenant, the promises that God made to Noah after the flood. The community is made up of non-Jews who see God\u2019s covenant with Noah as sacred for all people, and they observe seven laws related to ritual and ethical purity. Vernon\u2019s reference to the Noachide, along with the later phrases \u201cpasts are slain\u201d and \u201cI got outta La Grange,\u201d suggest a postdiluvian newness and redemption. On the chorus Vernon speaks to his past self, \u201cIn Hinnom \/ All this time \/ with your heart in mind \/ Didn\u2019t you edit?\u201d He questions why the version of him that wrote <\/span>For Emma<\/span><\/i> spent so much time suffering in the trash heap, rather than redemptively editing his history. There are no concrete answers to Vernon\u2019s quest for redemption, not yet, but \u201cHinnom, TX\u201d puts the search in explicitly religious terms.<\/span><\/p>

Vernon continues to explore growth and newness on \u201cWash.\u201d and \u201cCalgary,\u201d before ending the self-titled with \u201cBeth \/ Rest,\u201d a sister song to \u201cre: Stacks.\u201d \u201cBeth\u201d is Hebrew for \u201chouse\u201d or \u201cplace,\u201d and the song has Vernon and an unnamed lover on a sea voyage homeward. The song concludes, \u201cOur love is a star \/ Sure some hazardry \/ For the light before and after most \/ indefinitely \/ Danger has been stole away.\u201d As on \u201cre: Stacks,\u201d love is the North Star homeward for Vernon. \u201cHazardry\u201d and \u201cdanger\u201d are nothing compared to the \u201clight before and after.\u201d So Vernon\u2019s redemptive love reappears, this time with more specificity than on <\/span>For Emma<\/span><\/i>. It guides him and his lover home to safety and rest and renewal.<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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These lyrics are the most emphatic on the album. Vernon submits for deposition in the court of record his affection for Jesus\u2019s bloody atoning crown of thorns.\u00a0<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Partial to the Bleeding Vine<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

We arrive now at <\/span>22, A Million<\/span><\/i>, the third album in our sequence and the crux of Vernon\u2019s religious journey. The opening track wastes no time speaking to God: \u201cThere I find you marked in \/ constellation \/ There isn’t ceiling in our garden \/ And then I draw an ear on you \/ So I can speak into the silence.\u201d It\u2019s important to clarify here that Vernon is by no means a Christian. His metaphysic is probably materialist, finding the need to \u201cdraw an ear\u201d on God and, in a later song, sampling from Jim Brown\u2019s \u201cMorning,\u201d \u201cWhen we leave this room it\u2019s gone \/ I know so well that this is all there is.\u201d Nonetheless, Vernon is always God-haunted and on <\/span>22<\/span><\/i> he explores a distinctly Christian approach to sacrifice, grace, and redemption.<\/span><\/p>

On the Trinitarian \u201c33 \u2018God\u2019,\u201d Vernon starts a conversation with Jesus. The song builds on the self-titled\u2019s focus on specific places. In the chorus Vernon samples, \u201cI find God \/ and religion too\u2026\u201d and he is \u201cstaying at the Ace Hotel,\u201d a storied Los Angeles venue modeled after a cathedral that was used as a church in the 90s before it was converted to a hotel. As a nod to its history, the Ace keeps a big red neon \u201cJesus Saves\u201d sign on the roof. He goes on to sing, \u201cIf the calm could allow \/ Then I would just be floating to you now,\u201d and then later, \u201cI\u2019ve been looking through your mind \u2026 \/ All my goodness to show \/ Why are you so far from saving me?\u201d This last line is a quote from Psalm 22 and Jesus\u2019s last words on the cross: \u201c<\/span>Eloi, eloi, lama sabachthani<\/span><\/i>?\u201d Vernon\u2019s search for redemption, which began on <\/span>For Emma<\/span><\/i> and reached new geographies on the self-titled, has led him on <\/span>22<\/span><\/i> to a particular place \u2013 the cross \u2013 and a particular person \u2013 Christ. But Vernon isn\u2019t satisfied, not yet at least. \u201cI didn\u2019t need you that night \/ Not gonna need you anytime\u201d he protests in the outro to \u201c33 God.\u201d<\/span><\/p>

On the next song, \u201c29 #Strafford APTS,\u201d Vernon warms to Christ. On the first chorus he sings, \u201cA womb \/ an empty robe \u2026 \/ Paramind\u201d and on the next, \u201cA womb \/ an empty robe \u2026 \/ Canonize,\u201d meditating on Christ\u2019s climactic miracles–the Incarnation and the Resurrection–and the sanctifying newness that they bring. On \u201c666 \u0287\u201d Vernon is skeptical and leans atheistic, as the title would suggest, but on the bridge his ranting breaks with angelic singing, \u201cI\u2019m still standing in \/ Still standing in the need of prayer.\u201d Vernon is seeking Christ and him crucified, but he can\u2019t reconcile his doubts.<\/span><\/p>

In keeping with \u201cre: Stacks\u201d and \u201cBeth \/ Rest,\u201d Vernon reaches clarity on <\/span>22<\/span><\/i>\u2019s final track, \u201c00000 Million,\u201d a three-verse poem in the lyrical and musical style of a Christian hymn. The song opens with an assessment of his previous spiritual experimentation: \u201cMust\u2019ve been forces, that took me on them wild courses \/ Who knows how many poses that \/ I\u2019ve been in.\u201d But then Vernon challenges his history, singing \u201cA word about Gnosis: it ain\u2019t gonna buy the groceries \/ Or middle-out locusts, or weigh to find.\u201d This line condemns <\/span>22<\/span><\/i>\u2019s previous nine songs of Gnostic gibberish–after all of his questing Vernon wants a creed that is practical, sensible, and load-bearing. He goes on to express a desire for home, \u201cI worry about shame, and I worry bout a worn path \/ And I wander off, just to come back home \/ Turning to waltz\u2026\u201d Turning towards the three-step Trinitarian dance he closes the verse with a meditation on a heavenly eternal lamb: \u201cCause the days have no numbers \/ It harms me, it harms me, it harms like a lamb.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

The song reaches its climax, as any good hymn does, on a heartfelt opening to its final verse. Vernon sings, almost shouts, \u201cSo I can depose this, partial to the bleeding vine.\u201d These lyrics are the most emphatic on the album. Vernon submits for deposition in the court of record his affection for Jesus\u2019s bloody atoning crown of thorns. The verse, the song, and album close with humble resignation to eternal peace, \u201cCause the days have no numbers \/ Well it harms it harms me it harms \/ I\u2019ll let it in.\u201d<\/span><\/p>

22 <\/span><\/i>ends with the same self-sacrificial redemptive love that ended <\/span>For Emma <\/span><\/i>and <\/span>Bon Iver, Bon Iver<\/span><\/i>. But this time, Vernon\u2019s expression of this love is clearer and surer than it has ever been, and more Christological. <\/span>For Emma<\/span><\/i>\u2019s inchoate yearning for redemption gained geographic and religious structure on the self\u2013titled, and then matured into <\/span>22<\/span><\/i>\u2019s Christian framework. Vernon\u2019s desire for a place-based redemptive story of sacrifice is fulfilled perfectly in Jesus. He is not doctrinaire by any stretch of the imagination, but <\/span>22 <\/span><\/i>demonstrates that Christ allows for the clearest articulation of Bon Iver\u2019s artistic project.<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Vernon\u2019s inchoate lyrics amount to babbled responses to a God he does not fully know, who nonetheless lisps back in Christ.\u00a0<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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I Can Hear Crying<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Having been set free in Christ\u2013at least artistically\u2013on <\/span>22<\/span><\/i>, Vernon turns towards practical redemption on <\/span>i,i<\/span><\/i>. However, contrary to the Pitchfork<\/i> Doctrine that post-<\/span>22<\/span><\/i> Bon Iver is all butterflies and rainbows, Vernon doesn\u2019t shed <\/span>For Emma<\/span><\/i>\u2019s searing heartbreak. Instead, he exchanges his solipsistic sorrow for a communal crying against division and injustice. Unfortunately, but not without self-criticism, Vernon loses his Christocentrism along the way.<\/span><\/p>\n

On \u201cNaeem,\u201d Vernon weeps with those who weep, singing repeatedly on the chorus, \u201cI can hear, I can hear \/ I can hear, I can hear crying.\u201d He continues to fight with his pain from <\/span>For Emma<\/span><\/i>, concluding at the end of the second verse, \u201cWhy can\u2019t we just patch this up \/ And I cannot seem to carry it all.\u201d Vernon hasn\u2019t papered over the pain he expressed on his early albums. Instead, he has expressed it in collective rather than individual terms. Vernon sublates his own suffering to the suffering of others, that together they might carry the weight. This allows Vernon to express more clearly the redemption he has sought since \u201cre: Stacks.\u201d On \u201cNaeem\u201d\u2019s last verse he sings, \u201cAll around me I can hear em \/ So what is gonna happen now? \/ If you don\u2019t look away,\u201d demanding the listener not to ignore the crying all around. He exasperates for future renewal, shouting \u201cAnd it can\u2019t be that it\u2019s all \u2026 \/ And it won\u2019t be very long.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

Having found a communal expression of pain and redemption, Vernon is triumphant on <\/span>i,i<\/span><\/i>. But in a reversal of the trend from the first three albums, the closing song \u201cRABi\u201d has Vernon doubting his victory. The first two verses summarise his newly \u201cpeachy\u201d and \u201canodyne\u201d perspective, and the last verse doubts that it can carry the day alone: \u201cSo what of this release? \/ Some life feels good now, don\u2019t it? \/ Don\u2019t have tomorrow have a leaving plan \/ Nothing\u2019s gonna ease your mind \/ Well it\u2019s all fine and we\u2019re all fine any way.\u201d Vernon is unsure whether his new optimism will really ease his mind. Vernon\u2019s doubt, in my diagnosis, results from his inability to express his new joy in the explicitly religious terms of <\/span>22<\/span><\/i>. On <\/span>22, <\/span><\/i>he showed that communal redemption results from a Christ-like self-sacrificial love, but on <\/span>i,i <\/span><\/i>he lacks the religious framework to express how that love is made real in community. Instead, he resorts to vague pleasantries: on \u201cFaith\u201d he sings \u201cSo what I think we need \/ Is elasticity, empowerment, and ease.\u201d We can explain Vernon\u2019s fading confidence theologically: as he leans away from Jesus he loses the clarity of articulation that only capital-T Truth of Christ can bring. <\/span><\/p>\n

No Need to Crow No More<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

SABLE, fABLE<\/span><\/i> is split into the opening EP <\/span>SABLE<\/span><\/i> and the following complete album <\/span>fABLE<\/span><\/i>. <\/span>SABLE <\/span><\/i>recapitulates Bon Iver\u2019s early period, especially on the acoustic \u201cSPEYSIDE,\u201d a lucid expression of Vernon\u2019s wrestling with history, geography, and redemption. The song shows Vernon\u2019s maturity\u2013he has always been concerned with his past but \u201cSPEYSIDE\u201d takes an especially retrospective view, opening poigantly, \u201cI know now that I can\u2019t make good \/ How I wish I could \/ Go back and put \/ Me where you stood.\u201d As on <\/span>22<\/span><\/i> and <\/span>i,i<\/span><\/i>, he challenges his previous work: \u201cAs I fill my book \/ What a waste of wood \u2026 I can\u2019t rest on no dynasty \/ Yeah, what is wrong with me?\u201d Again, redemption is possible only through a place-based sacrificial love, the song closing, \u201cI really damn been \/ on such a violent \/ spree \/ But maybe you can \/ still make a man \/ from me \/ Here on Speyside quay.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

After <\/span>SABLE\u2019s <\/span><\/i>darker introspection, <\/span>fABLE <\/span><\/i>leans into <\/span>i,i<\/span><\/i>\u2019s optimism, this time even more clearly. As if to make a point, <\/span>fABLE\u2019s <\/span><\/i>first full song is called \u201cEverything is Peaceful Love.\u201d \u201cWalk Home\u201d is Vernon\u2019s most romantic yet, a sappier take on the homeward comfort he first felt on \u201cBeth \/ Rest.\u201d His heavenly imagination from <\/span>22<\/span><\/i> remains, singing, \u201cNo, we don’t need no window curtains \/ And we can let the light come in \/ And we can shed your earthly burdens \/ Of this I am certain.\u201d The next two songs redeem Vernon\u2019s earlier sadness and proclaim a new beginning. Quoting \u201cSkinny Love,\u201d Vernon triumphantly sings on \u201cDay One,\u201d \u201cI told you to be patient, I swore that I was wrong.\u201d The chorus of \u201cFrom\u201d references \u201cre: Stacks\u201d and declares, \u201cFrom now on \/ Don\u2019t let it trouble your mind \/ Just take my love in your time.\u201d The second verse on \u201cI\u2019ll Be There\u201d is all about practical virtue. He sings, “Don’t you dare go down \/ Tape the polaroid to your dome \/ Keep the sad shit off the phone \/ And get your fine ass on the road \/ Girl, it\u2019s time that I do testify \/ No more alone, I hear you coming.\u201d Vernon is confident and optimistic, ready to testify and no longer alone. <\/span><\/p>\n

The album\u2019s lyrical closer \u201cThere\u2019s a Rhythm\u201d completes the Bon Iver arc, uniting his present hope with his past pain. He opens with a happy resignation to the emotional range of his \u201cwild courses,\u201d singing, \u201cCan I feel another way? \/ Or are less and more the same? \/ Can I really still complain? \/ To be back here once again.\u201d He recognizes his history \u2013 \u201cThere are miles and miles of tape \/ You can watch it, it’s been\u205fsaved\u201d \u2013 and he exhorts equanimous forward progress \u2013 \u201cThere’s\u205fa\u205frhythm to reclaim \/ Get\u205ftall and walk\u205faway.\u201d The second verse forecloses on <\/span>For Emma<\/span><\/i>\u2019s loneliness: \u201cI could leave behind the snow \/ For a land of palm and gold \/ But there are miles and miles to go \/ And I\u2019ve been down this road before \/ There\u2019s another chance to show \/ No need to crow no more.\u201d Referencing the \u201cblack crow sitting across from me\u201d from \u201cre: Stacks,\u201d Vernon can finally rest in the snowy \u201cgood winter\u201d of Bon Iver\u2019s painful Wisconsin origins. <\/span><\/p>\n

In a nod to the name \u201cBon Iver,\u201d <\/span>SABLE, fABLE<\/span><\/i>\u2019s instrumental closer \u201cAu Revoir\u201d is another French amphimacer, and Vernon has finally come home. His last two albums, though, strayed from the Christological core of Bon Iver\u2019s artistic project. Vernon\u2019s deposition at the end of \u201c00000 Million\u201d is the literal crux of a five album chiasm \u2013 the cross gives Vernon the clearest language to express the redemptive truth he seeks in every album from <\/span>For Emma <\/span><\/i>to <\/span>SABLE, fABLE<\/span><\/i>. His own lack of religious commitments should pose no theological problem, because if all truth is God\u2019s truth, then if Vernon finds anything he will find Christ at the center of his search, regardless of his own intentions. John Calvin wrote that God \u201clisps with us as nurses are want to do with little babes.\u201d Vernon\u2019s inchoate lyrics amount to babbled responses to a God he does not fully know, who nonetheless lisps back in Christ. <\/span><\/p>\n

The name of the project, a French misspelling of \u201cgood winter,\u201d describes its arc. Bon Iver began in winter, in the Wisconsin darkness and an infected liver. By some miracle Vernon found something good in the winter, and it took him five albums to figure out what it was. He traveled far over the course of five albums but, in the words of T.S. Eliot, the end of all of Vernon\u2019s exploring is \u201cto arrive where he started \/ And know the place for the time.\u201d It would be easy to interpret Vernon\u2019s later optimism as a rejection of his early pain, but he always holds the two together. And at the crux of Vernon\u2019s journey<\/span>, <\/span><\/i>they are held closest together in Christ. <\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Illustrations by Najma Zahira;
<\/em>from album cover artwork by Brian Moen, Gregory Euclide, Eric Timothy Carlson, Aaron Anderson, Justin Vernon Ruben Nusz, and Miles Johnson<\/em><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Will Bryant<\/b> lives in Washington, DC, and works in clean energy policy. He graduated from Dartmouth College, where he studied Religion and Quantitative Social Science, in 2024.<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The arc of the Midwest indie project Bon Iver, now potentially complete, is long and winding but finds its clearest expression in Christ. By Will Bryant<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":69,"featured_media":12501,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"ocean_front_end_style_editor":"no","ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[10,98],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-essays","category-issue-37-the-mystery-of-music","entry","has-media"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farefwd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Image-1.jpg?fit=1668%2C1668&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/69"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12486"}],"version-history":[{"count":24,"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12486\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12621,"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12486\/revisions\/12621"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"htt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