Could Vernon explain this song if he wanted to? (He doesn’t want to.) Could you? Does the notion of explaining it even matter? (It doesn’t matter.) I have long resisted the too-perfect origin story of Vernon’s first album as Bon Iver, 2008’s austere and revered For Emma, Forever Ago. It sounds beautiful, it sounds profound, it certainly sounds like it means something. “I took it remote / I wanted a baaaath / Tell the story or he goes / Tell the story or he goes.” What primarily differentiates “Hey, Ma” from much of the rest of i,i is the mere presence of a chorus, gentle but fairly massive, an arena-rock fist pump amid an album of much weirder and subtler gestures: What does-what will-this song mean to you? What does it mean to him? “I waited outside,” Vernon bellows at the onset, the electric guitar chiming, the digital-cornfield synthesizer purring, a sonar-like blip keeping time, a deep bass drone ensuring that you feel it all deep in your chest, and likely deep in your feelings.
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