Calgary by Bon Iver Lyrics Meaning – Unraveling the Mysteries of Intimacy and Identity

You can view the lyrics, alternate interprations and sheet music for Bon Iver's Calgary at Lyrics.org.

Lyrics

Don’t you cherish me to sleep
Oh
Never keep your eyelids clipped
Hold me for the pops and clicks
I was only for the father’s crib

Hair, old, long along
Your neck onto your shoulder blades
Oh
Always keep that message taped
Cross your breasts you won’t erase
I was only for your very space

Hip, under nothing
Propped up by your other one
Face ‘way from the sun
Just have to keep a dialogue
Teach our bodies, haunt the cause
I was only trying to spell a loss

Joy, it’s all founded
Pincher with the skin inside
Oh
You pinned me with your black sphere eyes
You know that all the rope’s untied
I was only for to die beside

So it’s storming on the lake
Little waves our bodies break
There’s a fire going out
But there’s really nothing to the south
Swollen orange and light let through
Your one-piece swimmer stuck to you

Sold, I’m ever
Open ears and open eyes
Oh
Wake up to your starboard bride
Who goes in and then stays inside
Oh, the demons come, they can subside

Bon Iver, the artistic moniker of Justin Vernon, has never been one to write a straightforward love song. Instead, Vernon’s lyricism often reads like poetry, with layers of meaning that reveal themselves only upon meticulous inspection. ‘Calgary,’ a track from the self-titled album ‘Bon Iver,’ is one such song—a hauntingly beautiful ode that feels simultaneously personal and obscure, inviting listeners into a dimly-lit world of introspection and emotional reckoning.

As with much of Bon Iver’s work, ‘Calgary’ is not a story told linearly but a collection of images and sentiments that converge to evoke a profound sense of place and feeling. The task of deciphering the song is less about understanding a narrative and more about feeling the force of its words and music combined. Let us wade through this ethereal track and attempt to unpack its core themes.

A Dive into the Ethereal: Understanding ‘Calgary’s’ Soundscape

Before dissecting the lyrics, we must acknowledge the sonic environment of ‘Calgary’ which is as critical to its meaning as the words themselves. Lush and layered, the track’s music swells with a quiet intensity, weaving a soundscape that feels like a thick fog laden with emotion. Each chord and harmony adds a brushstroke to an ambient canvas, where Vernon’s falsetto seems to drift—ethereal and untethered.

‘Calgary’ isn’t a song so much as an experience; its music surrounds you like a landscape does a traveler. As with a landscape, our reactions to it are personal and often ineffable, shaped by internal rhythms and the unseen interplay of past and present. It is in this soundscape that the lyrics find their voice, suggesting a narrative but encoding it in a montage of sounds and words.

Unfolding the Enigmatic: The Cryptic Poetry of ‘Calgary’

Each verse of ‘Calgary’ feels like a delicate vignette, a fragmented memory plucked from a dream or the whisper of a feeling not yet fully formed. ‘Don’t you cherish me to sleep’ opens the song and immediately, we enter territory that is romantic yet lined with the subtle sorrow of something slipping away. Vernon masters the art of painting vivid emotional backdrops with minimal words—’I was only for the father’s crib,’ he sings, an enigmatic line that could point to origins, identity, and places of comfort all at once.

The song duck-dives into intimacies—lyrical snapshots of bodies intertwined, of spaces shared and private. From ‘Your one-piece swimmer stuck to you’—which grounds us in the physicality of being—to the ‘little waves our bodies break,’ Vernon’s verses are corporeal and anchored in detail, yet hover at the edge of abstraction, leaving us yearning for understanding while feeling the tidal pull of connection.

The Hidden Meaning: Distilling the Essence of Loss and Connection

Beneath the opaque layers of ‘Calgary’ lies a universal struggle between attachment and detachment, presence and absence, intimacy and solitude. ‘I was only trying to spell a loss,’ Vernon confesses, suggesting that the song is an attempt to articulate the inarticulable sensations that accompany the ebb and flow of relationships. The ‘rope’s untied’ implies a release, freedom or perhaps, the haunting realization of a bond no longer secure.

This theme of trying to grasp fleeting moments of togetherness is mirrored in the refrain: ‘Always keep that message taped / Cross your breasts you won’t erase.’ It’s a plea for permanence in the impermanent, an acknowledgment of the human desire to hold on to the slipstreams of joy and connection even as they threaten to vanish. ‘Calgary’ serves as a testament—a musical time capsule to the transient nature of emotion and the human condition.

Lines That Linger: Unforgettable Moments in ‘Calgary’

Certain lines in the song sear themselves into memory, their raw beauty and piercing familiarity anchoring the abstract lyrics in relatable human experience. Lines like, ‘Oh, the demons come, they can subside,’ reveal a truth about the internal battles we face—in relationships and within ourselves. It is a nod to our own demons, the fears and doubts that surface and, hopefully, wane in the face of love and acceptance.

Another memorable line, ‘Joy, it’s all founded,’ seemingly suggests that despite the spell of loss and the tumultuous journey of the relationship described, joy is an undercurrent—a foundational emotion that runs deeper than the present travails. These words stun in their simplicity, evoking emotions that are at once intimate and universally understood.

Interwoven with Nature: The Elemental Connection in ‘Calgary’

Bon Iver often infuses his songs with references to the natural world, and ‘Calgary’ is no exception. The ‘storming on the lake’ and ‘swollen orange and light let through’ serve as metaphors for the internal tempests and the hopeful breaks of lightness that penetrate even the darkest emotional storms. Vernon employs the scenery as a co-conspirator to the emotional narrative—a technique that deepens the meaning by aligning the human experience with the ebbs and flows of the natural environment.

It is through these elemental references that ‘Calgary’ becomes more than just a song; it becomes a shifting landscape where memories stir, where feelings are both anchored and set adrift, providing listeners with a sense of belonging to the larger tapestry of nature’s design. As with the tracks on ‘Bon Iver,’ ‘Calgary’ provides us with a deep, resonant connection to a world that is, at once, within us and far beyond our reach.