Bon Iver’s masterpiece For Emma, Forever Ago

Iver’s debut track Flume is an acoustic melody accompanied by falsettos and raw lyrics that are ghostly and gloomy.

Bon Iver’s Album Cover: For Emma , Forever Ago

I’ve recently been listening to the album For Emma, Forever Ago, by Bon Iver. The album is ghostly, intimate, and gloomy. It’s the perfect fall album. It’s the type of album you listen to on a drive home late at night or on a grey day with rain pattering on the window. I’ve especially been gravitating towards the opening track Flume. Many people know Bon Iver for his songs Rosyln featuring St Vincent or Skinny Love. Flume is a great place to start when getting to know Bon Iver, or more specifically singer-songwriter Justin Vernon. Vernon’s first completed song from his debut album, For Emma, Years Ago, was Flume. Flume is denoted as the catalyst to For Emma, Years Ago. One Reddit user describes Flume as the “genesis of the album.” It is said that Flume was written at his girlfriend’s before his infamous trip to his father’s hunting cabin for three months in the Wisconsin winter, where he would go on to write his debut album. The result of the creative catharsis was a raw, deeply moving, and vulnerable album. 

Bon Iver. Photo by DL Anderson

The process of songwriting for Vernon is said to first create wordless vocal lines which brought about “weird, subconscious melodies and sounds.” Understanding Vernon’s songwriting process allows Flume to be that much more intimate and special. The lyrics are spectral-like and are accompanied by an acoustic melody that is quite sad. 
“Emma” within the title of the album is the embodiment of: “a place that you get stuck in. Emma's a pain that you can’t erase.” Flume is representative of not only Vernon’s intimate thoughts but also his subconscious. The song is the embodiment of rawness, vulnerability, and confrontation with one’s emotions. The song is truthful to this idea of Emma, Flume is the embodiment of who Vernon was and when he was stuck in a time of depression and painful mediocrity. 

Flume by Bon Iver