Nothing's really happened like I thought it would

Bon Iver's meditation on change (& my 2024)

Bon Iver has always been a musical experience that transcends analysis. His lyrics are cryptic, raw, filled with symbolism I’ll never fully understand. Lush soundscapes wash the listener in a sea of feeling, emotion, depth, humanity. His voice, to me, is more powerful than the words it speaks, because language is insufficient for the intensity of what he wants to convey.

That’s not to say lyrics are a weakness. But they often feel veiled behind flowery metaphor or turns of phrase that one can recognize as true without ever fully understanding them. This is why I’ve never really bothered reading interviews; the art invites you to feel and be in it.

But his latest EP, SABLE, is much more direct. It hits hard and cuts deep much like other BI work, but it’s not quite as enigmatic. It tells a story of change.

SABLE: A Narrative of Change

SABLE was released on October 18, 2024, a time when I desperately needed it. I moved to Hong Kong in early September, having accepted a teaching job three weeks prior to my departure. That meant I had three weeks to sell my car, move out of my place, complete the laundry list of paperwork my job required, and say goodbye. Inevitably, challenges arose and I put off certain things that I thought would be easier to achieve in Hong Kong. If anyone is reading this and moving countries in the near future, please don’t do this.

Anyways, it would have been a big change regardless of how smoothly it went. I was in a new continent, surrounded by people whose language I did not speak, unaccustomed to their culture, unsure how to exist at the most basic level. I needed to find housing, learn how to teach english, complete yet more administrative tasks on top of everything I put off. I was without my medication for several weeks, which meant my chronic pain worsened and my mood destabilized.

To put it lightly, my mental state was scattered and anxious. I was suffocated by the weight of change.

So when I heard the simple but cutting line, “I would like the feeling gone / ‘cause I don’t like the way it’s looking,” open Bon Iver’s EP, I was instantly seen.

Few things in this world are truly inevitable. Death and taxes, as the aphorism goes, but even taxes can be avoided for the motivated. Change, however, is universal. Change has always been hard for me. Without fail every major change has brought its own challenges and left me reeling in one way or another.

I was a bit arrogant thinking I could take this massive change in stride, knowing my past. I thought, perhaps, that I had grown and developed such resilience that I wanted the challenge. I wanted to push the boundaries of my psyche.¹

I can handle
way more than I can handle
so I keep reaching for the handle
to flood my heart

- "AWARDS SEASON"

My decision to move to Hong Kong was driven by a wish to experience something new, to break from what I felt was getting dangerously close to stagnation. But I’m starting to wonder if I subconsciously craved the uncertainty and suffering that would come from moving.

The title of SABLE refers to a similar feeling, as Justin Vernon described in an interview with The New Yorker²

Sable. Mourning. Deepest black. […] But what is it? For me, I think when I’m speaking that line, what it refers to is being the darkness. There have been times in my career where it has felt like I’m repeating a cycle of heartache. […] But there have been a lot of accolades for me and my heartache. So it’s me asking the question: I’m a sable, I’ve been a sable. Am I repeating this cycle of sorrow? Or is this just how sorrow goes, and this is how everyone feels?

Track 1 of SABLE, “THINGS BEHIND THINGS BEHIND THINGS” sets the tone: vulnerable, confused, anxious. Justin speaks on his fear of change, and grapples with his own success, how he “never lose[s] / but who’s the benefactor?” This idea is so common among the famous and successful, that all the accolades, the wealth, the status, none of it makes one happy, fulfilled. People strive so relentlessly after “success” but don’t realize that the only “benefactor” of their ambition is the system. If you’re sad, money isn’t going to change it. You’ll just wipe your tears and blow your nose with Benjamins instead of Kleenex.

But at its core, this track is about the ambiguity and complexity of pain, trauma, and life.

I get caught looking
In the mirror on the regular
What I see there resembles some competitor
I see things behind things behind things
And there are rings within rings within rings

Everything is more complex than it seems. “THINGS BEHIND THINGS BEHIND THINGS” might as well be a meta-commentary on trying to dissect any Bon Iver song. Whenever you dive in, like I am doing now, there are things behind things behind things, so to avoid rambling, I’m going to move on to track two.

“S P E Y S I D E,” is a reckoning of guilt for people hurt. When Justin sings, “Nothing’s really something, now the whole thing’s soot,” and later, “what a waste of wood,” he uses a fire to symbolize how he’s caused something that could have been built into something productive (wood) into nothing but soot. He says that he’s “really damn been on such a violent spree,” and asks forgiveness from those he’s hurt.

I, too, feel this guilt in the way my actions or lack of foresight have hurt people. I make excuses for it or say that’s just how my mind operates, but that’s no excuse at all.

Ultimately, though, SABLE is about acceptance. We can’t change the past, but we can and must learn from it.

Verse 1 of the final track, “AWARDS SEASON,” tells of beauty and hope, in the context of a burgeoning relationship.

Oh, how everything can change
In such a small time frame
You can be remade
You can live again
What was pain now's gain
A new path gets laid
And you know what is great
Nothing stays the same

- "AWARDS SEASON"

In the second and third verses, however, Justin tells the story of this relationship falling apart and mourning the loss of it. He asks, “why do things gotta change?” which harkens back to verse 1, “and you know what is great / nothing stays the same?” To me, these two lines represent the cognitive dissonance of knowing that change is good, it keeps us moving, keeps us growing. But in the midst of change, it can feel painful and difficult.

[The three tracks] feel like an equidistant triangle, a triptych. It’s three, and it couldn’t be longer. It runs the gamut from accepting anxiety to accepting guilt to accepting hope. Those three things in a row. There’s no room for a prologue or an epilogue at that point. Because that’s it—that’s what everything is.

I’ve been watching the Netflix show BoJack Horseman on and off the past few months, and at one point the character Diane takes on an exciting challenge of a project chronicling a philanthropist’s (who is really just an admittedly hilarious egotistic asshole) efforts to rebuild a wartorn country. Eventually, after coming to terms with the reality of the danger and heartbreak she faces, she decides to come back, claiming, “I guess I’m not the person I thought I was.”

Luckily when I saw this episode I was back on my meds and feeling more stable, but if I wasn’t it might have sent me into a spiral. Because that’s exactly how I felt in the throes of the turbulence I described.

I don’t know if I’m the person I thought I was. I don’t know if that’s even a useful question to ask. What I do know is that I am grateful for the support system I have, and if anyone reading this has helped me in any way, big or small, this year, I thank you.

As I look back on 2024, I think it has been the best year of my life. Not the happiest, necessarily, but the most fulfilling, the year in which I became closer to who I am.

Yet, I can’t help but feel that this feeling of hope won’t last. The world is changing³. Way too quickly. Our society isn’t built to keep up with it. I don’t know what the rest of my lifetime will be, but I do know that things are going to get worse before they get better. Environmental catastrophe is unavoidable, nuclear fallout is one act of agression away, economic collapse seems likely, nationalism is rising, and with it will come more war, more genocide, more fear, and more division. And that’s just for starters.

So having hope at a time like this seems almost like lunacy. But what are the other options? Despair? Nihilism? No thanks.

I’m much more inclined towards the absurdist view of things. Yeah, the world makes no sense, and yeah, life has no inherent purpose. So why worry?

If environmental catastrophe is unavoidable, that’s all the more reason to go enjoy nature while you can. If nuclear fallout is a real possibility, shouldn’t we cherish the days we have left with the people we love? If nationalism is rising, shouldn’t we do all we can to bridge the gaps being wedged between us?

SABLE is about acceptance of change, and as we move into 2025 change is something that will touch us all. Accepting it is easier to say than to practice, but if ever the weight of change feels like too much, I’d encourage you to listen to these three tracks. They will make you feel a little less alone.

1. On the line “I keep reaching for the handle / to flood my heart.” Some think this is referring to alcohol (handle of liquor) but I don’t think that’s quite right. Having read the interview, I think it’s more his tendency to flood his heart with more sorrow, to repeat the cycle of heartache that he elucidates in these three tracks.

2. https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-new-yorker-interview/bon-iver-is-searching-for-the-truth

3. Some might say “ending,” but since SABLE is about change, let’s stick with “changing”