There are a handful of bands that have been companions throughout my life, releasing music as I’ve grown and changed. One such artist is Bon Iver, and their most recent release, SABLE, fABLE, is another part of that journey.
Those who have followed the Justin Vernon-fronted indie group know that Bon Iver’s vibes tend to be on the sadder side. Vernon’s lyrics are often cryptic yet deeply evocative. The substance of Bon Iver’s music is felt and experienced more than understood. The move from the stripped-down acoustic tracks of For Emma, Forever Ago to the lush, fuller sound of the self-titled album to the more electronic 22, A Million and I,I all manage to convey this soulful depth of emotion regardless of their genre.
I’ll admit that I’m partial to Bon Iver’s earlier iterations, so I fell in love with the SABLE EP when it came out last October. The color referenced in the EP’s title is near black, and its release in autumn, with falling leaves and signs of the year’s decay, was fortuitous. Commenting on this EP in an interview, Vernon said:
Sable is this dark black color and it almost started to become a cartoon of sad Bon Iver music. I like the songs a lot, but they were kind of these last moments, the last gasping breath of my former self that really did feel bad for himself. This feels like a return, but an update, so I was just like, hey, for all the people that just want to stay sad, this is for you.
What Bon Iver does with this album is shift from nihilism to the affirmation that life is indeed good, that there is love and joy and hope.
For Vernon, the darkly beautiful songs on SABLE were a kind of death, the “last gasping breath” of his former self. Vernon later describes his musical contributions in religious terms. He talks about the toll that such raw vulnerability and meditation on the heartbreak of existence has taken on him. He then goes on to say, “If there’s a gift I have, it does seem to be bringing this church sensation for people. And I love nothing more than trying to give that spirit to people—that church setting outside of doctrine. But I kind of ran that vehicle to its death.” There is space in this mortal life for grief and lament, and music like Bon Iver’s reminds us that we are not alone in our grief. Still, being a public symbol for such grief is taxing.
I couldn’t help replaying the three songs that make up the EP over and over. I was especially drawn to the track “S P E Y S I D E,” in which Vernon sings:
It serves to suffer, make a hole in my foot
And I hope you look
As I fill my book
Oh, what a waste of wood
Nothing’s really happened like I thought it would
The song is introspective, plaintive, and tinged with regret and frustration. It’s not so much a criticism of the world as it is as much as grief over the real tragedy that we encounter as human beings. Vernon doesn’t sing that “nothing’s really happened like I thought it should,” but rather “like I thought it would.” Vernon wasn’t trying to force an outcome, but nevertheless, life has been suffused with disappointment.
“Bon Iver” comes from the French for “good winter” and speaks of the cold and isolating grief that welled up in Vernon as he wrote For Emma, Forever Ago. I have not heard Vernon mention it, but I’m struck by the meaning of the French word sable, which can be translated as “sand.” That is precisely what these songs call to mind, shifting and notoriously difficult to hold in one’s hands before it slips away. Or, to take another image, of sand siphoning through the middle of an hourglass, a reminder that life is fleeting, that for us mortals the “few days of [our] vain life… [pass] like a shadow” (Ecclesiastes 6:12).
In addition to the shortness and uncertainty of our lives, we often get in our own way and trip ourselves up. In “S P E Y S I D E,” Vernon croons:
Yeah, what is wrong with me?
Man, I’m so sorry
I got the best of me
There is something confessional about these first tracks on SABLE, fABLE. By “confessional,” I don’t simply mean that Vernon is sharing about his life, but rather, that this is an admission of guilt, a kind of repentance. These tracks are a reflection of some of Vernon’s own personal struggles. In his New York Times interview, he says “That’s sort of what the ‘Sable’ thing is about: ‘Stay in the darkness, young man.’ And that’s no way to live. ‘Fable’ is: windows down, sunshine, everything is peaceful love—I love you.” Here, Vernon is hopeful.
Darkness is no way to live. But love is. And what Bon Iver does with this album is shift from nihilism to the affirmation that life is indeed good, that there is love and joy and hope. The album’s turn comes on the track “Short Story,” Accompanied by Kacy Hill, Vernon sings “That January ain’t the whole world,” a reminder that after winter comes spring, that new life can emerge even out of sadness and death. As the track ends, Vernon sings:
First thing is just be watched
Time heals, and then it repeats
You will never be complete
And the strain and thirst are sweet
You have not yet gone too deep
These lines celebrate life as it comes. It is not perfect (“you will never be complete”) and yet “the strain and thirst are sweet.” Living even the sometimes troubled lives we lead is good. To be alive is good. There is sweetness to be celebrated.
Immediately following “Short Story” is the groovy “Everything is Peaceful Love,” with a chorus that rings “every little thing is love and right with me.” The rest of the song’s lyrics are admittedly more ambivalent, but the feel of the album from here on in is breezy and hopeful, even if that’s not always lyrically obvious. Breezy and hopeful is not glib, though, and there remains longing in Vernon’s voice, a continued search, even as he decidedly leaves behind the darkness of the album’s first few tracks.
Hearing Vernon talk about his latest album, I get the sense that it comes more from a place of settled wholeness than anything else he’s written to date. I wonder if that’s a case of Vernon saying more than he knows. He is not a Christian, but as a priest who has just journeyed through Lent, Holy Week, and into Eastertide, I can’t help but notice the Christian resonances in this album’s journey. Is it somehow a reflection of Christ’s suffering death and being raised to new life?
There are truths I wish Vernon knew: That Christ really has died, risen, and will rise again. That every little thing is love, but only because it was spoken into existence by the God who is love. Even without apprehending these truths (as far as I can tell), I suspect the reverberations of the great thing God has done in Christ can even be felt and refracted in SABLE, fABLE.
