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â33 âGODââ

In a 1957 review of Gertrude Steinâs Stanzas in Meditation, the poet John Ashbery wrote that SteinâsÂ verse was interesting because it contained all the fallibility of people themselves. Her lines were âannoying or brilliant or tedious.â Stein wasÂ prone to stopping short in the middle of a sentence to wander the waking world. Her linesÂ kept you at armâs length.

Over the course of the last decade, Justin Vernonâs lyric writing and actual sound has drifted from a form of unvarnished memoir to a modernist opacity. It made me think of Ashberyâs writing on Stein. By being less intelligible, Vernon seems even more human, more ridden with flaws, and undeniably more interesting. Among the songs that have been released from Bon IverâsÂ upcoming 22, A MillionÂ so far, the surfacesÂ have been cool to the touch, alien, yet phantasmagoric with lush electronic sound. In â33 âGODâ,â Vernon hasÂ crafted a piece that lives within contradictory states of privacy and open-hearted bombast.

â33 âGODââ is filled with false invitations, lines that seemingly address an audience but become pleasantly garbled by personal meaning or nonsense: âWe find God and religions to/Staying at the Ace Hotel.â He swerves wildly between references, clipping his words, stutter-stepping from clause to clause, all while maintaining his characteristic falsetto and a sense of humor: âIâd be happy as hell,â he sings, âif you stayed for tea.â VernonâsÂ words are swaddled by naked piano keys and thunderous drums, giving his delivery a feeling of paradoxical collision. A high-pitched and nearly inaudible chorus makes the effect of the epic scale even more bizarre. Itâs hard to know who this song is made for other than Vernon himself. In that way, it has a tantalizing openness. You can take the words and sounds for your own. What might seem just plain grating or willfully obscure in â33 âGODââ is somehow deeply human.
