Songs for Winter … and Summer

Something is wrong with me.

I’m not going to even make a case that the way I listen to music is in any way normal. A few years ago, a non-Mormon friend told me that my listening habits were my way of using drugs. Seemed a bit extreme as far as analogies go, yet there is an addictive pattern in the way I listen to songs I like. See, I play them over and over. And over and over and over. If I’m feeling a song, I could easily play it ten times in a row, and by ten times, I mean more like twenty-five. That twenty-five times in a row might be spaced over several days, yes. I might just keep the CD on track #4 and listen to it every time I’m driving. If I’m carting my children around, the pattern will be interrupted, however, as they do not share my desire to listen to the same song so many times in a row. But my ears will crave a song until I almost can’t stand it anymore and have to find another track that will hold up under repeated listenings.

This is the night I knew I had a problem. It is also the night Bon Iver, otherwise known as Justin Vernon, became a soul mate. I was alone in my house, summer of 2009, still reeling from divorce. I had a million things to do, but not a shred of energy with which to accomplish the tasks. The hours took on their own time quality, made up not of seconds and minutes, but of contractions of sadness. I think I probably stayed on my bed for something like four hours, and I listened to re: Stacks, a gorgeous tune from Bon Iver’s well-deservedly beloved album “For Emma, Forever Ago.” By creating a playlist of just this song, I didn’t have to hit play after the first click. The song simply looped and looped and looped. When I glanced at the iTunes counter for this playlist of one, I saw that I had listened to it 67 times. (Here’s the sad admission – I probably still would need help remembering the lyrics if I were, say, singing this song at karaoke night. However, I would never attempt this song at karaoke night, so it’s not going to be a problem.)

Justin Vernon’s creation of “For Emma, Forever Ago” has become indie rock legend. He is part Paul Bunyon, part John Keats. His flannel-wearing lumberjack persona, complete with thinning hair peeking out from under a knitted cap, became a new kind of sexy: midwestern chic, if you will. Holed up in a Wisconsin cabin during a stretch of winter months, nursing a broken heart while making this record, Vernon brought to life the soundtrack of depression. My depression. I’ve heard others make the same observation about the album. If that sounds grim – people celebrating how sad his record was – I don’t mean it to. During a time when my ears were especially tender – and especially resentful of inauthentic music – I could tolerate Bon Iver. He was broken too. He was hurting too. He was also singing about this pain in his gossamer falsetto. Sadness has rarely been as lush.

Because of the special place “For Emma” occupies in my heart, I was wary to start listening to Vernon’s 2011 album, “Bon Iver, Bon Iver” this summer. I didn’t want to cheat on Emma, you know? But when NPR streamed the album in advance of its sale, I opened my ears and heart. Still, I wanted to be careful not to hold Vernon to some impossible first album standard. It wouldn’t be fair to expect another such record. It wouldn’t be fair to expect more songs like “Skinny Love” or “Flume.”

But after spending the entire month of July with this second album ringing in my ears, its red and white cardboard case my never-exiting-the-vehicle passenger, I admitted to myself that I loved the record as much as “For Emma, Forever Ago.” Big words, I know! And furthermore, in the bright days of Texas summer, I sort of liked it better, not that there’s a competition or anything! The liking it was more about me and my head. I wasn’t quite so stranded in depression as I had been when I started listening to Bon Iver. In my happier state, I was more capable of enjoying his songs, not just desperately clinging to the sadness made audible.

And I loved the way Vernon unabashedly pulled in saxophone (whodathunk?) and Bruce Hornsby motifs on some of the songs, especially “Beth.” I loved the way most of the song titles are locations. His lyrics were still exquisitely oblique (read: really hard to understand but gorgeously slurred together) and his falsetto still shimmery, though Hinnom, Tx provides a glimpse of Vernon down an octave and his throaty baritone had a wolfish quality that provided a solid anchor in the middle of the album. “Bon Iver, Bon Iver” is a proper album too. Even after NPR stopped streaming it, I continued the streaming, at least most of the time. I will admit, however, to putting Holocene on repeat after first hearing its wistful windswept melody.

But not 67 times. Or at least not yet…

Are there any songs that you could happily put on repeat?