Fall and Fixture
Enjoy an audio reading of this piece, or scroll to keep reading. At the end, you’ll also find a cover of Bon Iver’s “8 (circle)” by Julius Tunstall.
When J.T. heard me on Koku & I’s podcast, Alex + Koku, sharing my memory of hearing Bon Iver’s “8 (circle)” for the first time, he texted our Writing Boys group chat and said he had a similar “8 (circle)” moment with his partner. Then, as J.T. does, he sent a two-minute voice message detailing what happened. Immediately, I knew we needed to try to write something together.
This is not a linear essay or even two separate essays. It’s two friends’ experiences hearing the same song woven into something resembling symmetry. And as is the case with most of our writings, it’s a conversation with ourselves and each other. — ALEX LEWIS
JULIUS TUNSTALL: Interesting how mystery can add lore to a story. Justin Vernon was a man who, during his first album, no one truly knew who he was. He even admits that he didn’t know who he was. After a year of being in North Carolina with his bandmates, they broke up and he decided to go back to his hometown of Eau Claire, Wisconsin. The truth is Justin is a man of nature. He grew up feeling connected to the outside. Nature and the human condition fueled his passion for music.
Justin Vernon created his first Bon Iver album in his dad’s cabin by himself in the woods. While making that first album, he had no plan of making music a career. He thought he was done, but the spark caught. He got signed (shoutout to Myspace) and started building a studio in the woods down the street from his childhood home. All while leaning into his community and passion.
I learned about Justin Vernon as a senior in high school. He performed on SNL. I was blown away. So I started digging into this bearded, falsetto-singing entity. Every album has a backdrop for you to admire while discussing the music. That’s why I love him.
Justin Vernon’s approach towards creative collaboration also interested me. His second album, Bon Iver, Bon Iver, felt like a winter snow. It was a little more expansive. And because of the fame, he needed a break.
He worked on the Gayngs’ record, the Volcano Choir record, collaborated with James Blake, rocked his three-piece, The Shouting Matches, and worked with some unknown guy named Kanye West.
There were years of Bon Iver not making any noise. Then, he made a huge crash with his third studio album, 22, A Million.
ALEX LEWIS: “There’s instability, there’s distance, layering,” said The New York Times’ Jon Caramanica when discussing Bon Iver’s 22, A Million. Caramanica also could’ve been describing how it felt when, after two years of Elizabeth and I being together at Elon University, I graduated and ventured out on my own to Colorado Springs for what I believed at the time was my “dream job.” It was one of those opportunities you feel like you have to say yes to, that no one wants to take from you — especially the person most familiar with your longings and desires. With tears in our eyes, we held each other as it sunk in that soon we’d be separated by 1,600 miles. But we knew we wanted to see it through, which meant taking every opportunity to see each other.
Within our first five months of dating long-distance, Elizabeth and I saw each other three times in three different states. I graduated in May 2016. That August, I visited Elizabeth in her hometown of Columbus, Ohio. A month later, I flew out early to North Carolina for a work trip and spent a few days with Elizabeth back on our old stomping grounds at Elon. Next month, Elizabeth flew to Colorado to spend the weekend with me. It was her first time there. And I secretly hoped if I showed her a good enough time while she was in town, she’d want to move there when she graduated in the spring.
In the months leading up to Elizabeth’s visit, I had started an art project, Car Window Poetry, where I invited local poets to share their words on little note cards and distribute them on people’s car windshields. In a quick turn of events, I was able to host a writing event in Colorado Springs, which got featured in the local newspaper. And I even led my first-ever poetry workshop at a nearby elementary school. This city, where I knew very few people, was quickly becoming my home.
I wanted Elizabeth’s first Colorado trip to be memorable, so I built out a whole itinerary for the weekend, starting with us going from the Denver airport to a corn maze an hour away in Wellington, Colorado. Although Elizabeth and I had been able to see each other a few times in the months before her trip, it felt surreal being with her across the country in my new home state. After the corn maze, we were hungry and realized we were only 30 minutes away from being able to get lunch in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Neither of us had been before. And why wouldn’t we visit two states in one day if we could? Look how fun Colorado is!
There’s something about someone newly entering your space that opens you up to things you would’ve never done otherwise, especially when your love for that person, and a desire to always be near them, leads you into the delusion that they might one day share that place with you.
The next day, I arranged to take Elizabeth on my favorite drive to one of my favorite places — an old camp two hours away from Colorado Springs at the base of Mount Princeton in Buena Vista, Colorado. We packed into my Kia Soul that morning (yes, I drive a Kia Soul) and began our trip. One of the things I love most about Colorado, especially the drive from Colorado Springs to Buena Vista, is the scenery. There are very few places where, every morning, you wake up to a view decorated with 14,000-foot mountain peaks. Specifically, halfway between Colorado Springs and Buena Vista, I love driving through Wilkerson Pass, a road over 9,500 feet up in the Rocky Mountains, surrounded by stunning mountain views.
A few weeks before Elizabeth’s trip, Bon Iver released 22, A Million, a project obsessed with numbers. So, in that theme, my favorite numerical instance is that I was 22 when the album dropped. “Being 22 is me,” said frontman Justin Vernon when talking about the album in his 2016 interview with The New York Times’ John Pareles. I was 22 with a million reasons to be thankful. Neither of us had listened to 22, A Million yet, so I put it on as we began our trek to Buena Vista. My first observation was Kanye West’s influence on the album. Not in a way that felt like mimicry. But in the sense that I could tell, in the years leading up to its release, Kanye and Justin Vernon worked closely together with Vernon’s vocals on Kanye’s “Monster,” Bon Iver’s “Woods” sampled on “Lost In The World,” and even a satisfyingly bizarre pairing of Vernon and Chief Keef on Yeezus’ “Hold My Liquor.”
JULIUS: At this point in my life, I’m a full-on fan of Justin Vernon.
Also, a child of nature, I go on drives to nowhere and sit outside when the leaves change. As a kid, I would sit in my backyard, eyes closed, and listen to the wind whistle.
So when my wife and I were dating, I played a lot of Bon Iver. It wasn’t her favorite.
It was October 2017. We were heading to a Renaissance Festival in Maryland. I had my “Fall Vibes For The Heart” playlist flowing, and my favorite song from 22, A Million comes on: “8 (circle).”
ALEX: As 22, A Million played, Elizabeth and I shared our favorite moments from the album. But no moment is more sacred to me than when “8 (circle)” began to play. We were driving through Wilkerson Pass, the view mostly obscured by rocks and trees, which cast a dark shadow on the road in front of us.
Working its way up the hill, the music on “8 (circle)” steadily ascends during the first four verses before the song plunges into the bridge.
JULIUS: It’s a folk song drenched in synth and soul. An understated drum beat feels like the heartbeat of the track. Keeping you grounded. The song is a slow crescendo, slowly enveloping you as every second passes.
ALEX: At this point, the music suddenly drops. But halfway through, as Justin Vernon sings, “One more time just pass me by,” the song reopens into a flurry of horns.
JULIUS: After the fourth verse, there’s a musical break of horns. And we went through a tunnel. We emerge to incredible fall scenery, leaves changing. The song opens up to us as well.
ALEX: And as the song opened up, so did the sky, springing forth the most beautiful mountain range I’ve ever seen. And in that moment, it didn’t matter where Elizabeth lived, what city she called home. She was here. And I was home, sitting with her in my car. Wherever Elizabeth and I were side by side, hand in hand, I knew I’d be exactly where I needed to be. “What I have and haven’t held,” sings Justin Vernon on an album rooted in duality. The distance between Elizabeth and I, having been unable to hold her during the time we spent apart. But embracing being together with her now. What I have is home. What I have is true. “Unburdened and becoming.” We were going to be okay.
JULIUS: That’s when my wife looks at me and says:
“I like this song.”
Of course she does…
This is the way it was supposed to be listened to.
Enjoy Julius’ cover of “8 (circle)”:
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