Bon Iver and his gift of making you feel...

Well it seems that my old blog has been deleted.... And it wasn't by me. In fact I'm pretty certain a specific insecure asshole decided to go through my account (just like my facebook account) and erase it. Oddly enough I was going to go in and start over... not erasing my old stuff... but just take a different approach. I'd rather write about things that I truly care about. 

In the spirit of my success of my ideological rhetorical criticism on Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the USA" (which i will have to post at some point, it's just way too long), I have decided to start analyzing songs that I think are amazing. And by analyzing them, I am not going to be going so much in depth as I would in a normal rhetorical criticism, but rather I am going to analyze them to what THEY mean to ME.  "Life is like a movie, It's up to us to make the soundtrack"

Music has the ability to move people. It has the ability to call for change, and most importantly it has the ability to give voice to an issue, a cause, a reason, or a person who would otherwise may not have it.

I could easily go into the ideologies that are the basis for the folk movement, but I really know that this being a blog will only bore you - whoever you are because this is a brand new blog- so I will just get straight to it. 

The Song: Skinny Love

The Artist: Bon Iver

The Album: For Emma, Forever Ago

Come on skinny love just last the year
Pour a little salt we were never here
My, my, my, my, my, my, my, my
Staring at the sink of blood and crushed veneer

I tell my love to wreck it all
Cut out all the ropes and let me fall
My, my, my, my, my, my, my, my
Right in the moment this order's tall

I told you to be patient
I told you to be fine
I told you to be balanced
I told you to be kind

In the morning I'll be with you
But it will be a different "kind"
I'll be holding all the tickets 
And you'll be owning all the fines

Come on skinny love what happened here
Suckle on the hope in lite brassiere
My, my, my, my, my, my, my, my
Sullen load is full; so slow on the split

I told you to be patient
I told you to be fine
I told you to be balanced
I told you to be kind
Now all your love is wasted?
Then who the hell was I?
Now I'm breaking at the britches
And at the end of all your lines

Who will love you?
Who will fight?
Who will fall far behind?

So let's start with the music. The soft strumming starts a bit low and starts to pick up, but it never reaches the tempo to be considered poppy. The guitar at the beginning sounds a bit like a banjo but then I realized it was the guitar- silly me! I originally had this song on my breakup soundtrack of 2008 part 1 because it's not a sappy heartbreak song but it does give that feeling of loneliness and a bit of despair. I kept it on there because it seemed like all the other ones where it was mopey but without giving the idea of laying on the ground crying my eyes out in the dark. Rather, it gave me the sense of "you broke my heart and you ruined it and its your loss". But then when I got passed the chorus and the mellow and soothing yet foot tapping guitar, I realized that IT IS a breakup song, but its the other way around. 

Come on Skinny Love just last the year/Pour a Little Salt We Were Never Here/My, my, my.../Staring at the sink of blood and crushed veneer. The first line is like a lover begging the person to wait it out through the rest of the year. To give it another chance. The second line is attempting to cover up what ever incident/argument/situation happened that led up to this point and the decision that seems to have been made. The last line can be seen two ways. The first is that the sink of blood and the crushed veneer are the consequences of a fight, the aftermath if you will. Arguments get heated, and inevitably tempers will flare. Physical things may be broken. But it can also be a symbolism of the the emotional aftermath of the fight. I begin to think of a scene were the couple have just had a heated argument and after the fighting, they cant even look at each other, so they stare at some inanimate object to avoid the conflict or the resolution. So, to me, the essense of the first verse is that of a couple fighting and one makes a decision and the other is attempting to change that.

I tell my love to wreck it all/Cut out all the ropes and let me fall/my, my, my, my/Right in the moment the order's tall. Straying away from the first verse, the second one switches the view to the person that is making the decision. Person A (who is breaking up with Person B) is trying to end things as quietly as possible and as painless as possible. "Wreck it all, Cut the ropes and let me fall" is a clear way that, maybe not in those words, I have understood both from personal experience and just in the discourse itself, to mean 'Just end it now before it gets worse, just end it once and for all' The very last line is that final decision that at the precise moment seems like its the right thing to do. If Person A is breaking Person B's heart, it is definitely easier and to make the decision and move on before you begin to question. I am a strong believer that if a person already has the doubt in the first place to even consider making that decision, then its time to go. Call me a pessimist, but I can't help but sympathize with Person B. I've been there and back.

I told you to be patient/I told you to be fine/ I told you to be balanced/ I told you to be kind/And in the morning I'll be with you/But it'll be a different kind/I'll be holding all the tickets/An you'll be owning all the fines. This chorus just moves me. Maybe its because Justin Vernon is singing it with a sort of indignation that is pretty much blaming his love for having to break up with her. It's like he's saying "i told you not to be this way, or act that way, and you didn't, and because of that I now don't have a choice but to end this."  The metaphor of holding the tickets and the owning of the fines is symbolic of the power struggles in that relationship. And while it's not explicitly stating that exact point, it's an excellent play on words on placing  blame.

And while I sit here listening once again to the album, For Emma, Forever Ago  I decided to stop analyzing the song because it's too much to do for one blog entry, but rather I should tell you why I like it and why I think its one of the best albums of the last 8 years. 

Let's face it, Bon Iver isn't a great singer. His voice doesn't have that powerful "boom" and tonality as does, say, Whitney Houston, Christina Aguilera, or Bono. Just like Bob Dylan, his voice is scratchy, and kind of winey. But it's honest. In this song you can hear the pain in his voice when having to make this hard decision. The slow strumming of the guitar that builds up at the chorus emphasizes the emotion that he portrays. That's what makes a great singer, one that can clearly send the message of the song across even with the lack of the "beautiful" voice. The clapping at the end of this song makes for a perfect ending because of the duality of this song. 

Move on to the song "Blindsided". His voice in this song is so quietly and it goes high at the end of every other line, and its got the drum beat in the back simulating a heart beat. The quiet voice speaks louder that it sounds because of the raw emotion in his voice. Blindsided is so genuinely open, that Justin Vernon is opening himself up, revealing himself entirely i'm crippling slow... i am blindsided , It's been a while since an artist opens himself up to the degree in which you feel your heart break with his as he sings Would you really rush out for me now? Maybe it's just me, but this song reopens old wounds but at the same time the sincerity in his voice makes me feel better to know that someone else felt that way, and got past it. It sends a glimmer of hope of survival for whatever the issue is. I'm not entirely convinced this song is about a breakup, but it is about the end of something, something big, something that leaves us, as the title states, Blindsided.

For Emma gives a twist that most people don't know unless they look at the lyrics as Vernon rights it. This song is a breakup song, but every other line is by him and her. She is breaking up with him. But the musical value in this make it for a a friendly end "with all your lies, you're still very lovable".

All in all,  For Emma, Forever Ago is an album that is great for listening to it loudly, alone, and better in the dark, where you can appreciate every line of every song to appreciate the personality behind this album, and you can relate to it all. Vernon locked himself in a cabin in Wisconsin for a winter to write this album, and that is clearly felt throughout each and every song. If you're open to feeling lonely, sad, and heartbroken, I highly suggest this album. As I said before, it's open, its honest, and most importantly its touches each of your senses. It really does. listen to it more than once and each time, each song will make you feel or think something different, and when that happens, I believe the singer has gotten his job done.