"Beth/Rest" by Bon Iver, Tuesday, December 28, 2021

Following up their critically acclaimed breakthrough record, For Emma, Forever Ago, Bon Iver recorded their sophomore eponymous album in a converted veterinarian clinic in Fall Creek, Wisconsin. While the band's first album earned two points higher of a score on Meta Critic (88%) than the self-titled record's 86%, the self-titled record won the 2012 Grammy for Best Alternative Album. The self-titled record was named by both Paste and Pitchfork as the album of the year for 2011. The heavily-filtered vocals of Justin Vernon's baritone-to-falsetto range along with the variety of heavily-produced instrumentals make this album both pleasant to listen to and helped to redefine what the genre of Alternative actually meant.

AND THE RAIN LET IN. Justin DeYarmond Edison Vernon majored in Religious Studies and minored in Women's Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire before becoming the indie rock god to college kids coming of age with Bon Iver's esoteric lyrics and easy-listening ballads, though Bon Iver's third album 22, A Million ventures away from the easy listening factor into a fully avant-garde experience. Earlier this month, we heard Bon Iver crooning on Taylor Swift's "exile," and we discussed the origin of the name Bon Iver, and how Vernon and Bon Iver sometimes are synonymously used when being featured on a track. The band's sophomore album begins with the track "Perth," which Vernon wrote in 2008 when he was thinking about the death of his friend, actor Heath Ledger. The actor was born in Perth, Australia, and played roles on Australian television and film before coming to the United States. Vernon associated "Perth" with the word birth. The album's closer "Beth/Rest" is associated with death.

SAID YOUR LOVE IS KNOWN, I'M STANDING UP ON IT.  Many Bon Iver fans hate "Beth/Rest." Vernon, however, constantly defends his choice to include '80s-styled soft rock ballad at the end of his second work. The lyrics of the song are confusing, falling into a small percentage of songs that make my playlist that 1) I have to look up words and 2) I don't know immediately what the song is about on a surface level just by reading the lyrics. Fun fact: a soffit is the part of a roof that overhangs the wall. The lyrics are seemingly random leading up to an "axiom." Similarly, the music video is bizarre. It made me think about if Superman's Kryptonian parents were giant chickens traveling to earth. The beginning of the video made me think about Christmas and the end made me think about Ebola or some infectious disease. The feeling of the song seems to be more important than the lyrics, and maybe this is the point of Bon Iver. While Vernon could have used much smaller words or mixed the lyrics where they were a more prominent feature of the song, instead listeners are left with muddled lyrics with a few moments of lucidity, words that stand out and seem to be important to the song. But the rest of the time, we're in a bit of a musical hallucination. Maybe that's also the point. Near death, life starts making less and less sense. And if I'm completely off, I'll just sign off by saying, "Let's have a good end of the year, and Bon Iver--enjoy your winter!"

Read “Beth/Rest” by Bon Iver on Genius