The story & meaning of the song 715 – CR∑∑KS by Bon Iver.

After winning 2 Grammy awards in 2012 the frontman of Bon Iver, Justin Vernon, almost quit making music. He said “I look at it like a faucet. I have to turn it off and walk away from it because so much of how that music comes together is subconscious or discovering.” So he did walk away, only to discover a new way to make music which led to one of the band’s most fearless songs. Vernon is infamous for leaving things open to interpretation, so It’s difficult to objectively explain anything about Bon Iver, but there’s a lot to talk about here.

Finding New Zones

Vernon’s initial popularity came from down-the-line folk songs like Skinny Love and Holocene; music that relies on acoustic instruments with lyrics that are painful and introspective (think sad singer-songwriter). But as a side effect of the kind of deep excavation required to produce that material and perform it every night, Vernon eventually felt depleted. The common trap after achieving Vernon’s level of success is to give the audience more of what it seems to like. But instead of rinsing and repeating the same sad folk songs for another half decade, he stepped back and tried to find new ways to express himself.

Once Vernon started to have commercial success, many artists outside of the folk genre began calling. They wanted him to contribute the unique vocal sound he’d become known for to their own tracks. It was around this time when artists like Kanye West and Travis Scott called. The music that they made together became critically acclaimed and sent Vernon into a new stratosphere. These were important collaborations that introduced him to a totally different style of music production. It was exactly what he needed after getting burnt out from the same old way of doing things and it gave him a hunger for discovering different tools for expression.

By 2016, 4 years after he had stepped away from Bon Iver, Vernon started working with his longtime collaborator and engineer Chris Messina on new songs. One day in the studio, Vernon was watching a friend use this tool called a Harmony Engine. Essentially a Harmony Engine allows you to input a single audio signal and produce multiple harmonies of that sound: “I basically saw him taking a trumpet line and playing it, but he was kind of doing it after the fact. Instead of playing and recording it, he made it sound like a bunch more. And I just was like, holy cow. That is amazing. That’s really cool… I was talking with Chris Messina…my confidant basically this entire record process — we were just talking about setting up new toys and trying to find new zones…and I was just like, ‘Let’s try that out.’ When we figured that out, he got all the gear to make it work, I was like, ‘We’re calling this the Messina!’”

This tool breathed new life into Vernon’s process and helped him shake that empty feeling of burn out that we all experience. When the well runs dry and we’re not feeling inspired or motivated there can be a tendency to retreat inwards, to isolate ourselves. But it can be helpful to get out and collaborate and find inspiration from others. By working with artists outside of his genre and discovering new tools with his production team, Vernon refilled his well of creativity. He found a new zone, then he turned the faucet back on.

A Vision of Wholeness

The album, 22, A Million, that came after this period of renewed inspiration, was far from the folk music that he had become known for. The sounds he discovered during his time off were completely new and Vernon began pushing the boundaries of what a song can even be.

In 715 – CR∑∑KS from that album, there are no acoustic guitars, no drums, no bass, nothing but a vocal being processed through their new instrument “The Messina.” In Vernon’s words, “it’s just me and a vocoder and it takes a lot. It’s a lot of memory, it’s a lot of pain, it’s a lot of guilt.” The lyrics are evasive, circling around a painful memory of loss. It’s written as a confession that morphs into a plea for love and meaning. Since the entire arrangement uses one voice, the expression of the performance plays a huge role in how the song is understood and felt.

The setting is established with “down along the creek” and then the idea of memory is planted with the repetitive phrase, “I remember something.” In the 1st verse a “heron hurries away” and there’s a confession to something that may have caused it. Taken symbolically, this is almost a thesis for the song which represents love that has been lost while the rest of the song unravels the details. The 2nd verse changes settings, like in a dream where you’re all of a sudden in a new place. Discontent grows stronger with the lines “leaving wasn’t easing” and “now is not the time.” In the 3rd verse he begins to address someone directly:

Toiling with your blood I remember something

In B, unrationed kissing on a night second to last

Finding both your hands as second sun came past the glass

And oh, I know it felt right and I had you in my grasp

The performance intensifies here as the lyrics become more tangible. There’s a picture of unrestrained love that had been purposeful and powerful. But it’s followed by the heartbreaking lines:

Oh then, how we gonna cry?

‘Cause it once might not mean something?

These verses point out the opposing realities of being with someone, knowing it felt right, and then, in the end, loss and lack of meaning. How can they coexist? How can something so beautiful turn into something so lifeless? In the 4th verse he acknowledges that “love, a second glance, it is not something that we’ll need.” Able to accept the reality of the loss and asserting that it doesn’t need to be revisited, the lyrics turn to even an even deeper confession:
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Honey, understand that I have been left here in the reeds

But all I’m trying to do is get my feet out from the crease

This is the climax of the vocal performance from Vernon and the highlight in the sonic quality in the entire song. The love is lost but a deeper meaning is still evasive. He’s crying out for something, looking for something else as he’s trying to get “out from the crease.” The song ends with the repetitive lyric, “turn around, you’re my A Team,” returning to the evasive phrasing that opens the song. Back in the haze “along the creek” where the heron hurries away, earnestly seeking change. Stepping back into the crease and searching for meaning once again.

Whenever I listen to 715 – CR∑∑KS, I’m reminded of something the Jungian psychologist Robert Johnson writes about in his book We. He says that when “we are ‘in love’ we feel completed, as though a missing part of ourselves had been returned to us; we feel uplifted, as though we were suddenly raised above the level of the ordinary world. Life has an intensity, a glory, an ecstasy of transcendence.” Johnson points out that the reason we end up feeling so lost in the aftermath of a failed relationship is that we are always seeking something deeper. Especially when we see a person and the love that develops as a door to finding “ultimate meaning and fulfillment.” He writes, “What we seek constantly in romantic love is not human love or human relationship alone; we also seek a religious experience, a vision of wholeness.”

Bon Iver’s music has this unique quality of spirituality that has built a cult-like following. At a show in Austin several years ago I saw people raising their hands like they were in church. On a recent podcast he recalled a moment at a show when it all crystallized in a bad way. He said, “I’m up there and I’m singing the song and I saw a friend who was actually sick in the crowd and I locked eyes with them and I just started weeping. I’m dead middle of an Acappella vocoding song and I’m like ‘this is unsafe space for me.’ I’m going to have to take a knee, which I did, and get back up and finish the tune. And I remember people were cheering for encouragement but they’re also like this is what we came here for…There’s a gift I have where it does seem to bring this sort of Church sensation for people. And I love nothing more than trying to give that spirit to people, you know, give them a church setting outside of doctrine or something like that, but unsafe.”

This “church sensation” that Vernon talks about is a by-product of songs like 715 – CR∑∑KS. He described the way his music comes together as “subconscious or discovering” and that’s part of the reason he burnt out after winning 2 Grammys. Because in order to produce these spiritually charged songs he has to dig out pieces of himself and put them on display. Almost like he’s the modern version of a gladiator in the ancient colosseum, but instead of facing death, Vernon is facing meaning. The Stoic philosopher Seneca wrote that people should look to the gladiator’s contempt for death in order to steel themselves against their own fear of death. He wrote, “for men will make greater demands upon themselves, if they see that death can be despised even by the most despised class of men.” In other words, people should take courage from watching a man face death without fear. Maybe the audience who cheered for Vernon as he broke down during a song where he’s courageously exploring meaning were being encouraged to face it themselves.

Facing a painful loss, like Vernon writes about in the song, tends to put us face to face with some of life’s big questions. And the courage to explore and look into yourself for answers can be really hard to find. But what Vernon offers in the song and in his live performances are a reminder that we should face them with fearlessness. We never quite arrive at the “vision of wholeness,” but we also ought never stop striving for it.

Talk to you soon,

Dawson

​P.S. I’m taking my time on these and turning them into videos before sending so the frequency will probably be close to one a month. Thanks for reading and let me know if there’s a song you’d like me to talk about.