Bon Iver - 22, A Million (September 30, 2016) Album • Page 39

Someone pointed this out about "21 M◊◊N WATER" and I thought it was interesting:

"The math ahead
The math behind it"

"The path ahead
The path behind us"

"Musically, these lines are a direct echo of the track Keel by Volcano Choir, another Justin Vernon project. This is in keeping with the album’s conscious dealing with the past and synthesizing it. From that song:

"The propheteer
The prophet's here"

"The prophet's come
The prophet's good and stung"

etc.

 

This record is actually really immediate IMO. It hits you right away. I find a lot of Bon Iver sounds like it should be difficult, but never is. Loving it.

 

did not pick up on that but it's fucking awesome

 

Six songs into my first spin and holy shit this is good.

 

I got choked up on public transit listening to 8 (circle). Need to be careful where I listen to this lol.

 

that melody is just unfathomably impressive, how does he come up with this shit

 

i know this song has been out officially for awhile now but god damn when the music opens up after the "fold my clothes" line on god, holy shit.

 

I like this.

I will not discuss the songs because of how the song names are written.

 

god damn turn around

 

Creeks is probably my favorite song on this

 

ONE MORE TIME JUST PASS ME BY
IMA MAKE IT HALF THE NIGHT
HAAAAAAAAAAALL NIGHT WISHES

(S A X O F Ó N)

 

that "fold my clothes" line is kind of a head scratcher for me

 

I'm picturing a fight between a him and a lover. They fight and he realizes he doesn't need it anymore. "Didn't need you that night, not gonna need you anytime, was gonna take it as it goes"

He's then going "forward in the light" and thus packing his bags(folding his clothes)

idk

 

that makes sense actually

 

I love Justin's lyrics so damn much. I write my lyrics so consistently like that with much less of a positive turnout, haha.

 

that p4k review is really spot on and perfect and this album is incredible - easily one of the five most important and influential artists of this millennium

 

Definitely is an amazing review. I'm so happy that Justin is so young. Let's see how long he can put out masterworks.

 

It's amazing what he's been able to do thus far considering he only has 126 minutes of officially recorded music under the name Bon Iver

 

Isn't this the last Bon Iver record?

 

I think it may be my fave song on the record. Immaculate. The way it opens up there and after 'staying at the Ace hotel' as well, not to mention just that perfectly plodding along piano riff.

 

I highly doubt it.

As Bon Iver re-emerges, Mr. Vernon is thinking hard about self-preservation. “When I made the last record, actually both records, I very much felt like I’d healed myself,” he said. “Oh, I got done, and oh! now I’m better. And this one, I’m smarter than that. Now that this album’s done, as much as I healed a lot of things by making it, I know that it’s an ongoing thing. The river does not end.”

source: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/25/arts/music/bon-iver-justin-vernon-22-a-million-interview.html?_r=0

 

That could mean many things I guess. I just don't think he's done.

 

I love how many interpretations there are of Justin's lyrics. The "fold my clothes" line in particular has a lot of variations. I've read similar interpretations as the one above and then some others that get a little further out there. Who knows though! That's part of the joy of it for me.

One of the suggestions I've read is that Justin is in control of what he does in the beginning of the refrain ("I didn't need you that night / Not gonna need you anytime") and that his original plan, "Was gonna take it as it goes" suddenly changes by the end when he states "I could go forward in the light" but instead he makes the very human choice of inaction ("Well I better fold my clothes"). It's the idea of his struggle in lacking agency, his personal crisis he went through over the last several years in failed attempts to make anything new, instead focusing on the mundane day to day tasks like folding clothes to pass the time and never moving forward into the light. The song seems to be indicating his struggle to grasp for meaning (which we definitely know about due to interviews surrounding the album's release). Titling it 33 GOD has obviously religious implications tied to it and thus the final lines "Why are you so far from saving me?" could be viewed as the summation of that struggle to find meaning using God as a metaphor. Perhaps, if he is failing to find meaning or intent, then the answer is "because you don't exist."

The religious connotation becomes even heavier when you consider that the music video directly quotes Psalm 22 as the source of that question, "Why are you so far from saving me?" and the song itself is 3:33 seconds long. Some fans think it's another biblical allusion to Jeremiah 33:3 which acts as a response: "Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know." And of course 33 is the generally agreed upon age of Christ's death.

Really I just like the idea of an individual's struggle to find significance while unintentionally being the metaphorical barricade to that struggle.

And of course its allusion to the previous album with the line "these will just be places to me now" signaling his intention to leave behind the perceived emotional attachment to the theme of places being tied to certain people or memories. He instead becomes caught up with the obsessive binary nature of life until the very end when he returns to it in the final song. His lyrics shift back to "“lowlands”, a "river" the “canyon”, “that grove”, “a worn path”, “highlands”, and, most importantly, “home.” It's all capped off with "the days have no numbers" and an acceptance that if "it harms me, I'll let it in."

Beautiful.

 

^fuck
that makes alot of sense too.

 

Listening to BI BI right now and I hear alot of "Moonwater" in "Michiant"

Man the string section on this album is just out of control good