Justin Vernon’s debut album, ‘For Emma, Forever Ago’ is a perfect piece of art. The album was released in 2007 by a label called “Jagjaguwar” under the name Bon Iver, Vernon’s artist name. So many new genres and styles bloomed from the creation of this album. This album portrays a grand emotion that was so new to me, even when I listened for the first time in 2019. The story behind the album is incredible too, giving you a new perspective on all the songs. After a saddening breakup, Vernon moved to his father’s cabin in Wisconsin, 18 hours away from his house in Raleigh, North Carolina. Vernon chopped his own wood and hunted for his food, bringing down all his walls, alone in the middle of the woods. He brought a computer and very few instruments, including a 1930s resonator and an acoustic from the 1960s. But, going to the cabin, he didn’t want to focus on making music. After recording all of the songs, he went back home and showed a few of his friends. Vernon intended to re-record the songs in better quality, but his friends urged him to release them as-is. The raw audio, sometimes picking up little sounds and creaks around the cabin, and beautifully layered vocals are incredible in this album. I don’t think that any track is less than a 10/10, though I do have favorites of course.
9. “Skinny Love”
“Skinny Love” is the most played song on the album, even making it on the radio for quite some time. The song features primarily guitar and layered vocals, much like most songs on this album. I don’t know if it’s because of how much I’ve heard this song, but I just don’t feel the emotion in the music. The vocals show his emotion so much, but it just makes me feel like the music is lackluster, unfortunately.
8. “Team”
This track is the only instrumental song on this album. It comes pretty short at a minute and fifty-seven seconds. I don’t know how to feel about this song because of the instrumental aspect, but I can appreciate its very minimal style. I don’t love the whistling in it, but towards the end of the song the whistling starts to become more offbeat, and I do enjoy that part of it.
7. “Flume”
Vernon cuts deep into his family’s love and how it has hurt him in the past. He sings, “I am my mother on the wall with us all.” Vernon is talking about a picture on the wall, saying he can’t help but see her in himself, or the other way around. The song plays a more odd sound, a guitar pick scraping down a string, giving an almost metallic violin sound. The storytelling and pictures portrayed in this track are odd and creative, and Vernon’s vocals stun me like always.
6. “Lump Sum”
Lump Sum starts as if it’s in a cathedral. Vernon’s voice swells and draws you into an intimate story about how he got to where he is. He explains his forest getaway and how he isn’t really running from his problems but is leaving them all behind. Lump Sum puts you in the wood cabin with him, and feels almost like a discussion with him. I love the reverb on his vocals and the guitar feels like it’s dragging you along on his journey.
5. “For Emma”
“For Emma” is a tribute to a failed relationship, one of the reasons he got away from society and went to the cabin. This is one of, if not the only track that had anything added to it after he got back. The trumpets at the end are added by his friends, but it doesn’t take away from the feeling of isolation or loneliness. This track feels almost like acceptance of the end of a relationship, and it captures the feeling perfectly.
4. “Creature Fear”
“Creature Fear” starts slowly with layered humming which gives us the melody of the song. When Vernon starts singing and playing the guitar, we think we have the mood of the song down, but we don’t. The song very suddenly breaks into a faster pace with bass and guitar, and huge background vocals, but it depletes as fast as it came. This happens another time in the song, this time longer and to the end of the song. A snare comes in with a more distorted guitar in the background, the song goes directly into the instrumental track “Team” seamlessly. The first time I listened to it, I had no idea it was two different tracks, and it caught my attention. I’ve heard this other times on other albums, but the way Vernon goes from a full song to an instrumental is different.
3. “Re: Stacks”
The last track on the album, “Re: Stacks” is beautiful. Vernon has said that the “Re” in the title is used as “regarding,” like how people use it in emails. This track is regarding the “stacks” or issues and load that he’s created with a recent breakup of not only a relationship but also his band as well. Vernon sings about exploring the emotions he’s left with after realizing how much he’s been running away from his problems. Ironically, his running has led him face to face with his problems, and he won’t shy away from them. The guitar chord progression with his combination of hammer-ons is simple and beautiful, and the same can be said for his voice. Vernon strips the layered vocals we’ve seen in every other track and leaves us with only two different vocal parts, one panned to the left, and one to the right. This feels almost like a conversation with Vernon, him explaining his realizations to us.
2. “The Wolves (Act I And II)”
This five-minute-long track is nothing short of a masterpiece. The track is very direct in its lyrics and explains a regret for ending the relationship, but the way he delivers this is what makes this track even better. He uses tons and tons of layered vocals throughout this whole song and even heavy autotune at some points, which paint beautiful melodies across the back of my eyelids, and as I picture him alone the sound of a distant ambulance siren is captured by his microphone. You would think a small thing like this would take you out of the experience and distract you, but it does the opposite. The song starts slow, but toward the middle, he starts to slowly pick up, the guitar gets louder, more vocals come in, and you can hear the autotune and its creative use, but something different happens. Cymbal crashes start to swell and Vernon makes an almost whiny sound that delivers his emotion in beautiful chords. The crashes come to a climax and as soon as they start, they disappear and you can hear the creak of the cabin floorboards. Vernon closes out the song with delayed vocals, all starting at different times than each other, “Someday my pain…”
1. “Blindsided”
“Blindsided” is a story about Vernon contemplating breaking into a building in his hometown during the winter. He is faced with his conscience telling him it’s a bad idea. He keeps entertaining the idea even though he knows he won’t do anything, and that his conscience will get the best of him. The what-ifs that he keeps asking himself bring him to think about what would happen if he did get caught. He asks, “Would you really rush out? (for me now)” Later in the song, Vernon sings “Taut line, Down to the shoreline, The end of a bloodline.” We learn that he was breaking into the building as a space to end his own life, and he wonders if the person he is thinking of would come before he could make up his mind. At the beginning of the song, Vernon ends two verses with, “I am blindsided,” because he feels in the dark about what ended the relationship. He feels as though there is someone else. He realizes different red flags about his partner as Vernon is thinking, “There’s a pull to the flow, My feet melt the snow.” He looks down and realizes that all of this contemplating has completed his realization and that the way things turned out makes sense, and he comes to terms with it. He finishes up the song with, “‘Cause blinded, I was blindsided, Blinded…” Vernon is no longer in the dark, and he feels differently. Vernon turns around and walks down to the beach.
‘For Emma, Forever Ago’ is a painful tribute to a failed relationship, along with other struggles. The rawness of this album makes it feel so real, every emotion can be felt perfectly as Vernon paints pictures in every mind that listens. This album will always be one of my favorites of all time because of how human it is, and even though it’s been out for sixteen years, it still holds up beautifully.
