Bon Iver’s releases from a year ago (SABLE, fABLE) have been with me, for a year now. A couple songs travel really closely with me. When I turn on my car, the YouTube Music app serves it up as a mainstay. I turn it on for myself, and I turn it on hoping it will have the same effect on my daughter - calming - on her route to school.
There’s a natural cool and simple breakthrough saying these things, these concepts in these songs. Particularly the title even “There’s a Rhythm.” I mean, on it’s own it feels true. It’s truth feels calming. Where the world can force feed randomness and noise but after that, meaning and serenity maybe… there’s a rhythm to the cycles. But also as you go, a rhythm you can learn. A rhythm with which you can pace your day, your breath, your intention. I even imagine that practicing this rhythm makes you better at it.
But wait, make room in your heart for S P E Y S I D E. Such mournful poetry of what feels like both apology with an inevitable acceptance that you can’t go back. “as i fill my book, oh what a waste of wood.” Referencing his exact practice of writing which is bringing me so much joy, to mere reversal back to the material whose empty offering created such moments. Justin brings emotion alive, like no other.
Day One (feat. Dijon & Flock of Dimes) — church of positivity, managing to capture the revelation born of being pushed to the limit, that learning so hard you hate it until it finally shows up as the sunlight after so dark a storm you’d lost imagination that it would end. I love it, the pressure of relationships, especially with yourself. You think you’re so strong, then hell handles your everything, and you just go along for the ride. Come out the other side with the notion that this is exactly how everything always happens, isn’t it? Recovery, also is a Rhythm.
These are beautiful songs I will love, and true to the order Justin created, I won’t say “I’ll love them forever”… I’ll say, I will love them - From Now On.
