Bon Iver’s self-titled album with the song Holocene. I think Justin Vernon of Bon Iver sums it up best in his interview with All Songs Considered on NPR:
But I think for me, the music that has always resounded with me — and art as well — is when it feels a little bit like it’s coming from a person. And it’s coming from a visceral place. A place that is maybe trying to explain something that isn’t explained yet.
On the meaning of Holocene, Vernon says:
Yeah, yeah. Holocene. Holocene is a bar in Portland, Ore., but it’s also the name of a geologic era, an epoch if you will. It’s a good example of how all the songs are all meant to come together as this idea that places are times and people are places and times are… people? [Laughs.] They can all be different and the same at the same time. Most of our lives feel like these epochs. That’s kind of what that song’s about. “Once I knew I was not magnificent.” Our lives feel like these epochs, but really we are dust in the wind. But I think there’s a significance in that insignificance that I was trying to look at in that song.
And, I think if I had to sum up my year, it would relate to something like that — that so much of growing up is finding the significance in your insignificance. There is nothing yet there is everything. The world does not revolve around us, and yet, the world is a reflection of us — our decisions, our lives, our relationships, our human impulses, and our rare abilities to rise above them courageously and imagine the world differently. The lack of “magnificence” in our individual lives adds up to something far greater than any of us could ever conceive, and you come to understand how interconnected it all is.
Vernon continues:
…You’ve grown up, 25, 26 years old. And now you have to realize you’re kind of in control of most of the stuff happening in your life, and if you’re not happy about them, you have to actually do stuff about it. And there were dark times during the For Emma tour where I was homesick, or I was not figuring stuff out or whatever. But I think the last three years has been mostly about getting patted on the back every time I make a decision that is good; that isn’t based on some bad set of points. That’s good for community or music. And not based on any other decisions. And I think trying to get healthy and treat myself better and treat people around me better, it’s much healthier now. And I have [For Emma] to thank for that, but not because of the success that it brought. But because it was my last chance to do something, to actually step out and be myself and not edit anymore. And I think the metaphor for the rest of my life is kind of everything keeps growing and glowing at the same time…
