How Bon Iver and NLMG remember the important things

On July 8, 2007, after a long but good winter, Justin Vernon emerged from a hunting cabin, and with him, he brought the project Bon Iver, and his debut album ‘For Emma, Forever Ago’. The album’s background has become folklore since its recording. Following a breakup, Vernon retreated the cabin he and his father used to visit. There, he alone recorded nine songs about lost love and mediocrity on his guitar, singing with a now signature falsetto. Bon Iver, like all artists, immortalized the important things, exactly like Kathy remembering Ruth, Tommy and Hailsham in her story.

In a period of 8 years, Justin Vernon, the creator and sole member of folk-pop project Bon Iver, has released 2 albums- a self-titled album in 2011, and '22, A Million' in 2016. Both these albums are about how we preserve and connect moments and memories to places, people, words, and feelings.

Bon Iver's 2nd album, Bon Iver, is a Grammy-winning collection of chamber-pop. All of the songs are named after places, like Holocene, about a bad night spent at the bar Holocene, or Calgary, about falling in love during a morning swim. All of the songs tie moments and memories to places, like the fields where Kathy imagines Hailsham and Tommy, or Norfolk, where Kathy returns, hoping to find all the things she'd forgotten and lost.

Bon Iver's most recent album, '22, A Million', is different, to say the least. His falsetto is largely gone, instead choosing to feed his voice through a modified vocoder his producer invented, called The Messina. The song titles are cryptic, like 33 "GOD", and 8(circle). His connections to places are minimal, the only locations are a Wisconsin area code in 715 - CREEKS, and an apartment in 29 #Strafford APTS. Its lyrics are confusing, like "I'd hide Berlin/To run and find it" in 21 MOON WATER. He makes up words, like "Astuary king"(a combination of actuary and estuary). His stories are nonlinear, sometimes telling of a breakup before the relationship itself, or describing a night in fragments while forgoing setting. Vernon is rarely tying memories to places, and now numbers and feelings, connecting religion with math, or emotions with The Messina. In this album, Vernon, like Kathy, remembers only the necessary things. Instead of people and places like Kathy, he remembers everything, like abstract ideas, places, people, thoughts, and feelings.

Never Let Me Go is a book of memories, and while it is told linearly, Kathy jumps between talking to us directly, reflecting on her life, and telling her life's story. Even though she tells us her entire life, it's mostly the story of her, Ruth, Tommy, and Hailsham. Kathy only remembers the important things in her life, and remembers them clearly, leaving everything in her life to fade to the background. Bon Iver does the same, but it seems like there is almost too much to remember for Justin Vernon. While Kathy focuses on remembering 3 different things, Vernon attempts to immortalize places, people, relationships, religious beliefs, and emotions. Vernon ties them together, like the surreal image of the clown carrying human-shaped balloons tied together. The only thing preventing the balloons from floating away is their connection to each other, Never being let go.