Tag Archives: bon iver

#1031: Bon Iver – Perth

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And so I’ve reached the first Bon Iver song in this series. Anyone expecting more, don’t get too excited. It’s also gonna be the last. Bon Iver goes into a self-noted group of indiehead-worshipped artists/acts that have never been that special to me. I only properly like three songs by Justin Vernon’s band. Songs that have left me feeling like I’d want to hear them again, and soon. Two of them beginning with letters coming before ‘P’. Have never been able to truly get into them, and I’ve listened to For Emma…, 22, A Million and Bon Iver, Bon Iver – the last of that list being the source of today’s song.

Now, Bon Iver, Bon Iver as an album, for the longest time, was a bit of an enigma to me. Up until about last year, I would hear the record, think it was nice, but have trouble recalling any of the songs I had just listened to. Up until about last year, I’d listened to the album about three times. That’s probably the most times I’d listened to try an album. Not for enjoyment purposes, but to try and ‘understand’ it. It’s probably the only album I’ve done that for. For an album that was so critically acclaimed, it didn’t seem so amazing to me. Still doesn’t, to be honest. A lot of people like ‘Holocene’. Think it’s one of Bon Iver’s best songs. I mean, it’s all right. For me though, ‘Perth’ has always been the special one from the album. It’s been on my shuffle playlist since at least 2016.

It all begins with the track’s opening riff. That’s really all you need when you listen to this one. As soon as you have that riff’s melody locked in your head, you’ll have it stored in there for the long time. I’m very sure that’s what made me add it to my list in the first place. Plus, the whole track relies on it. If there’s no riff, the song won’t work. The lyrics are said to be inspired by the death of Heath Ledger, so to say they have some importance may be an understatement. But even then I think the lyrics conjure up for imagery than being a recount of personal feelings. Vernon’s vocals to me add more to the music rather than being the focal standpoint. It’s the instrumentation that truly gives me chills when I hear this song. Every time too. Particularly during the “still alive for you, love” choruses and the instrumental ending that finishes with a goosebump-inducing chord. I see waves crashing off a shore in slow-motion in that section of the track, I don’t know what it is.

#771: Kanye West ft. Bon Iver – Lost in the World

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So pretty much two months from now, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy – Kanye West’s magnum opus, arguable to some – will have been out for 10 years. I wonder how West will commemorate it. Probably with a Twitter rant of some kind. He probably won’t. He has admittedly said that he doesn’t care for the album that much and considers it a backhanded apology for that VMA incident in 2009 that made him one of the most hated people in America. I was 15 years old when the album came out, but somehow completely missed the GOOD Fridays campaign that led up to it. For all I knew, ‘POWER’ was the only song he’d released before it. I want to say that I remember the exact first time I listened to it in full… I can’t. I do remember listening to it a lot in those first few days though. I was just glad he was rapping again. A decade has passed and it’s a bit of a bummer, a bit scary too.

‘Lost in the World’ is the final track on the album in which Kanye is present. Very much the climactic point of the whole record. It’s largely based on the song ‘Woods’ by Bon Iver, and I think West bought that band’s leader Justin Vernon into the studio to re-record some lines as well as just add some vocal embellishes on there too. The whole message of the track? Basically, being a rapper in this crazy world and dealing with the struggles that come along with it. And it’s done amidst this massive musical backdrop of pummeling percussion, synthesizers, vocal samples, live choir-vocals…. the lot. The track is essentially its chorus repeated with elements built on top with each iteration, apart from one sole verse from West full of contradictions that was later confirmed to be inspired by Kim Kardashian.

The only thing that bugs me about this song is that following outro, and the album closer, ‘Who Will Survive in America’ is its own separate track. ‘Lost’ feels horribly incomplete without it. If the birthday skit with Chris Rock was appended onto the end of ‘Blame Game’, why couldn’t the same be done with ‘Lost’ and ‘Who Will Survive’? Whatever. That’s just a minor thing for me. I’m there are a lot of people who appreciate the separation. Despite this minuscule issue I hold, there’s no denying that both tracks are worthy of their place in closing out one of the greatest hip-hop albums of this century.