Things Behind Things
Bon Iver, Emotional Authenticity, and the Search for Something Real
Justin Vernon, the sonic architect behind Bon Iver, whose haunting falsetto had soundtracked heartbreaks and transcendent moments, was eating lunch in a downtown New York cafe. Unassuming and relatively everyman in appearance, I hadn't even noticed him at first—it was actually Sam who whispered to me, "Holy s***. Is that Justin Vernon?" In New York, though, we pretend not to notice. It's a quiet pact we make with the city. Nevertheless, I approached Vernon to mumble something about how much I loved his music. Which is probably a thing he has heard time and time again from the dude constituency. Instead of the practiced celebrity nod I expected, Vernon's eyes lit up as he gestured toward my rainbow Nike windbreaker. "That's incredible," he said, voice warming. "Where'd you find it?"
And just like that, the fan-celebrity line dissolved. It wasn’t deflection—it was an invitation. We were two guys talking about imported streetwear. He made the moment small and human. I walked back to my table feeling a little cracked open, like I had just witnessed a glimpse of whatever it is that makes his music feel less like sound and more like weather.
That same instinct—to shrink the distance, to make something vast feel intimate—is at the heart of Vernon’s work. What’s most striking about his artistic journey is his willingness to embrace what others might consider profoundly uncool. His songs carry the DNA of Bruce Hornsby, of weathered Midwestern radio, of lonely piano chords echoing through church basements and empty bars. And instead of chasing trend or irony, Vernon wraps his arms around that emotional earnestness and pulls it forward, glitching and warping it until it becomes something not retro, not nostalgic—just deeply, achingly human.
It’s almost rebellious, the way he allows himself to feel. In an age where vulnerability is often packaged, algorithm-tested, and monetized, Vernon’s work feels like it’s still groping toward some raw truth in the dark. There’s no agenda to it. He doesn't manufacture catharsis—he builds sonic spaces where you can bring your own ache, your own questions.
I felt this most clearly on December 14, 2016, inside the Music Hall of Williamsburg (see my footage below). A room too small for him, even then. The air was humid with winter coats and breath. And when he played “8 (circle)”—my favorite off 22, A Million—there was a moment when the whole room seemed to hold still. He sang, “Philosophize your figure/ What I have and haven't held/ You called and I came, stayed tall through it all,” and something passed through us like a tremor. Not applause, not movement. Just stillness. That night didn’t feel like a concert. It felt like communion.
Maybe that’s why artists like Kanye and Taylor Swift and Zach Bryan bring him into their worlds—not just for his sound, but for his presence. For that trembling honesty that doesn’t demand the spotlight. On My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, Kanye samples Woods, turning Vernon’s auto-tuned howl into the soul of the album’s final act. It's strange—how something so digitally processed can feel more human than a clean vocal. But that’s Vernon’s gift: he finds the cracks, the ghost frequencies, and sings from there. Swift similarly sought his collaboration for "exile" on her folklore album, understanding that his presence provided an emotional authenticity that Swift is so often accused of not being able to channel herself.
His latest record, SABLE, fABLE, takes this even further. On the opening track “Things Behind Things Behind Things,” Vernon sets down the falsetto and sings from his chest—deep, earthbound, uncertain. The song opens with the soft knock of a heartbeat, and then the lyrics come like someone talking to themselves in a mirror they don’t fully trust. “I get caught looking in the mirror on the regular and what I see there resembles some competitor.” That line in particular resonated with me strongly and deeply. Not because it was clever. Because it was true. That quiet terror of becoming someone you never meant to be.
And yet, there’s strength in that confession. It takes courage to say, I don’t recognize myself. It takes even more to say it out loud in a song.
On the other end of the emotional spectrum is “Everything Is Peaceful Love,” which somehow holds both grief and ecstasy in its arms. It begins barely breathing, and then swells like a chest filling with air after a long sob. It doesn’t tell you what to feel. It just creates a space big enough for all your contradictions to breathe.
What makes these songs feel sacred in 2025 is precisely what they refuse to do. They don’t chase algorithms. They don’t offer hooks in the first fifteen seconds to avoid being skipped. They don’t beg to be liked. They ask to be listened to. That’s a different thing.
In an age where streaming platforms turn emotion into data, Bon Iver sounds like resistance. Not loud, not angry. Just steady. A flickering light in a cabin far off in the woods.
Even his use of Auto-Tune feels subversive. Where most artists use it to smooth and perfect, Vernon uses it to fracture, to ghost, to distort. He makes his voice sound like it's breaking apart just to prove it still exists.
And maybe that’s what makes Bon Iver’s music feel so vital now—as artificial intelligence climbs into the studio and machine-generated songs get more convincing by the month. The question isn’t just what sounds human? But what sounds like a soul?
In his recent Popcast interview with Jon Caramanica, Vernon talked about making SABLE, fABLE and how, for the first time in a long time, he didn’t feel like he was dragging himself uphill just to create. “It feels like the boot’s off my chest,” he said, almost sheepishly, as if surprised by the relief. For an artist whose early work was born from isolation and rupture, this new record sounds like someone learning how to breathe again. Not triumphantly, but tenderly—like someone realizing they don’t have to carry it all alone.
That sense of emotional unburdening pulses through every corner of the album. It’s not that the grief is gone, but that it’s no longer the only voice in the room. There’s space now—for softness, for absurdity, for love that doesn’t need to prove itself. And somehow, through all the digital warping and fragmented phrasing, the core of it feels startlingly clear: you are allowed to feel this much. You are allowed to heal.
Bon Iver’s music, in many ways, makes me feel the same way Richard Linklater’s Waking Life does. Perhaps because, like the film, it’s not obsessed with plot but rather with the elusive, almost spiritual nature of existence—of infusing one's soul into art. In a segment of the film, actress Tiana Hux says, “I want real human moments,” and that, in a sense, could be Justin Vernon’s mission statement. His work is about creating those moments, not with precision or polish, but with a raw, imperfect honesty that feels both fleeting and eternal.
In another Waking Life scene, screenwriter Kim Krizan reflects, “Creation seems to come from imperfection. It seems to come out of a striving and a frustration. What is, like, frustration? Or what is anger or love? When I say ‘love,’ the sound comes out of my mouth and it hits the other person’s ear, travels through this Byzantine conduit in their brain... and they register what I’m saying and they say yes, they understand. But how do I know they understand? Because words are inert. They’re just symbols.”
“And so much of our experience is intangible,” she continues. “So much of what we perceive cannot be expressed. It’s unspeakable. And yet, you know, when we communicate with one another, and we feel that we’ve connected, and we think that we’re understood, I think we have a feeling of almost spiritual communion. And that feeling might be transient, but I think it’s what we live for.”
That’s what Vernon’s music does—it creates the space for that communion, for the unspeakable. Through all the glitches and layers, through the vulnerable, fractured pieces of his voice, there’s a striving toward something intangible. His songs don’t just share emotions; they invite us into a kind of understanding that can’t be captured by words. They hold space for what can’t be said, for the quiet beauty of connection, the fleeting moments when we feel truly understood.
And maybe, in the end, that’s what his music—like Waking Life—reminds us of: that even in the midst of imperfection, even when the noise threatens to drown us out, there’s always that moment of communion waiting to be found. A moment when the soul connects, not in spite of our flaws, but because of them.
And that's what I feel now, listening to SABLE, fABLE—the sense that someone is reaching across vast distances to say: I am here, I am struggling, I am alive. Are you?