You Forgot the “H”

image courtesy Jagjaguwar / 4AD

by Penelope Johnson ‘25

I remember the dreary October night when I entered a packed theater in Madison to see a man of Wisconsin legend perform. I’d grown up listening to Bon Iver long before my family moved to Madison; before I learned that the album I’d downloaded onto my iPod shuffle in the fourth grade was about his time in an Eau Claire cabin. On October 20, 2018, I watched Justin Vernon walk across the stage next to then-Democratic Senate nominee Tammy Baldwin. In typical Madison fashion, my main concern that night was about the group of people from my high school standing a small distance away from me in the pit. I’d learn the next day that my math teacher, too, had attended. To complete the circle, an alumni of our school, Madison West High, was standing on stage—Baldwin herself. Vernon has spent years hiding his image behind Bon Iver’s music; the juxtaposition between him and a woman who’s spent her whole life creating a public image was striking.

I remember looking through genius lyrics the night before his concert, scanning the blueprints of songs I’d long since memorized. Every line had been painted gray, indicating a paragraph-long annotation analyzing it. I clicked through a few, decided I hated the pretentious Pitchfork disciples that had likely written them, and clicked away. 

In the crowded Sylvee Theater, it was as if those annotations had come to life. Hordes of bearded, beanie-wearing adult men looked at me, a fifteen year old girl, with utter disdain. I felt, overwhelmingly, that there must be something in Bon Iver’s music that I just didn’t get. 

I have no videos or photos of the concert, as I didn’t take my phone, but I can still picture Vernon, alone on the stage, singing “715 - CRΣΣKS”. No one sang along. We all stood observing the man under the spotlight—the only light on in the theater. I remember thinking it felt too intimate of a moment for me to partake in. In a crowded theater, Vernon’s work felt like a personal anecdote soliloquized by a stranger.

Years later, I rarely ever listen to Bon Iver. I had never been able to shake the feeling that I wasn’t smart enough to appreciate their music. The group exists in my life as a tote bag bought at the merch stand that October night, and as an anecdote about my former algebra teacher.

photo by Penelope Johnson ‘25

But this past week, a memory came up on my phone: the fog over a lake in Door County, Wisconsin. It reminded me of something. I suddenly realized I’d seen a similar image on a CD cover in my mom’s old stash next to the Sony Dream Machine that sat in our family kitchen for years. The album, naturally, was Bon Iver’s For Emma, Forever Ago.

This album, which shot Justin Vernon to stardom and mass critical acclaim, was recorded in a secluded cabin in Northwestern Wisconsin. As I dove further into Wikipedia, I realized Vernon’s circumstances and desires that led to the album’s creation were more similar to my own than I’d like to admit. He had grown frustrated with life and decided to rough it in the Wisconsin winter woods, claiming he “needed silence”.

Anyone who knows me at Wellesley knows the mythos I’ve created surrounding my Wisconsin roots (more accurately and less eloquently put, they’ve listened to me force Wisconsin trivia down their throats). Yet, every summer I return to Madison, I experience that same small-town suffocation I felt at the 2018 concert. What I’ll never be able to explain to non-Wisconsinites is that I don’t miss the place itself; I miss the moments that could only happen in a place like it. I miss driving to Door County, Wisconsin during quarantine to experience a chosen rather than imposed silence. I miss being able to bike to an open field and feel unimportant. In other words, I understand why Vernon elected to leave his life behind and live as a recluse on a Wisconsin farm.

As I listened to For Emma, Forever Ago last week for the first time in ages, I found myself feeling like I understood it for the first time. Quite simply, it’s a story of being alone again. This fall, my parents and sister are both living outside of the United States. Now that I’m a six hour time difference and a fifteen hour flight away from my family, rediscovering an album from a hometown artist has helped me find comfort. It’s also given me an incredible sense of vindication for my younger self. Standing in that crowd, watching Vernon’s performance with no background knowledge, bringing no judgment to the table, I experienced his art in a way I don’t think the men around me ever could. After all, Vernon’s career took off due to self-imposed isolation that was a reaction to the suffocating atmosphere around him. Who better to understand absolute isolation than a fifteen-year-old girl alone in a crowd of disapproving adult men? Who better to understand wanting to escape to home than a college student far away from the ones they love?

I plan to play Bon Iver on my WZLY show this Friday. My parents will hear it as they loyally tune in from South Africa. My mom will undoubtedly text me mid-show recalling memories of his voice resounding throughout our old kitchen. The people next to me at the concert will not be listening, nor will my high school peers–Mr. Flottum probably won’t either. But I will be playing Bon Iver, and I will be listening. To me, now, that is all that matters.