In One Tree Hill, Peyton Sawyer (whom I vicariously lived through during high school) says:

“There are lyric people and music people. You know, the lyrics people tend to be analytical…all about the meaning of the song. Then there’s the music people…who could care less for the lyrics as long as its just got like a good beat and you could dance to it. I don’t know, sometimes it might be easier to be a music girl and not a lyric girl. But since I’m not, let me just say this. Sometimes things find you when you need them to find you, I believe that. And for me it’s usually song lyrics.”

When I think about this quote, despite that I’m slightly embarrassed I have all 129 episodes memorized (discarding season 6, it was horrible), I find this quote to be overtly true. In times of need, emptiness  and heartbreak I have been found by music and changed, ultimately by its lyrics. A few artists come to mind when I consider who has spoken to me the most, and one of these is Bon Iver. At my high school in Texas, Bon Iver was almost unheard of simply because the general public did not accept those who did not sport cowboy boots; ass-less chaps optional. But in Boston, he seems to be a more noted artist.

Bon Iver, pronounced “bon eevair”, is actually Justin Vernon who wrote Bon Iver’s first album, For Emma, Forever Ago, in a remote cabin in Northwestern Wisconsin over a period of three months post breakup with band, girlfriend and with mononucleosis. Vernon was not planning on writing an album, but in the progression of his own personal recovery just happened to do so. He came up with the name while watching Northern Exposure on DVD, where a group of men in Alaska wished each other a ‘bon hiver’ or a good winter. When I first heard Bon Iver’s creation story, I immediately thought of  Thoreau and his work Walden, the prodigious product of his own solitude. And in the same way, I think Vernon’s seclusion along with the selfishness in which he made the album is undoubtedly the genius of For Emma.

When For Emma was released in 2007 it received extremely fragmented reviews but I understand why. It’s whether you’re a lyric person or a music person. Some find it an instant epic, while many think its hushed vocals and constant demeanor which evokes an almost dismal sadness is simply boring and depressing. I recommend you take a listen to the album, but approach it as you would a novel rather than individual tracks. Listen to it all the way through as a body of work to appreciate its evocative and haunting beauty. However, if you are too impatient, I suggest Skinny Love, which suffices as a seven-course meal on its own.

Here is a video of Bon Iver performing Skinny Love on The Late Show:

Since For Emma, Bon Iver has released a four-track EP album titled Blood Bank in 2009 and has mainly been collaborating with other artists such as St. Vincent for the New Moon Soundtrack. If you ask me, this might just be Twilight’s one redeeming quality. Way to go, Edward.

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