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xzaddyzanakinx · 1 year ago

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My Best Girl

Stepdad!Anakin Skywalker x Femme Reader Oneshot

18+ MDNI

Warnings: domestic violence/abuse, non-con/dub-con, oral sex, emotional abuse, manipulation, gaslighting

Info: this is a graphic and accurate depiction of an instance of domestic abuse/non-con. Read at your own risk.

🕊dead dove do not eat🕊

“Don't lie to me," he snarled, his hands gripping your wrists tightly. "I saw you."

He leaned in closer, his ice blue eyes boring into yours, filled with pure undiluted jealousy.

"Tell me the truth." Anakin’s fingers dug into your wrists just like your knees dug into the tile of the kitchen floor.

You were sitting at the kitchen counter, having a wonderful little moment to yourself. A big tall glass of blue koolaid, your favorite snack and your comfort cartoon playing quietly on your phone for background noise while you worked diligently on repairing your younger brother Luke’s loth-cat stuffie.

The poor thing had been through the wringer this week; left all alone in the cold dark cubby overnight in his preschool classroom, ran over by Leia’s tricycle, and his undoing was being left unattended in the living room under the watchful eye of your family dog. The horrible shriek that pierced your ears was enough to burst your eardrums, you went rushing, hoping that you didn’t walk into a bloody mess.

Though the tantrum that ensued after his initial shock was more than enough to wish maybe just alittle bit that Leia had just wacked him upside the head with her toy doctor’s kit again.

You’d sworn on your life that his ‘only best friend’ would have his leg reattached and in it’s rightful place under his arm when he woke up tomorrow morning.

So there you sat, sewing his leg back on when your stepfather Anakin returned home from work. Covered in oil and grease from his day at the garage, he walked past the kitchen and gave you a wave and crooked smile. You gladly returned the gesture, your relationship with your stepdad had begun rocky, arguments and mean words exchanged on a daily basis. But now, months later, you’d finally begun to get along.

He was a good man, a good dad; it wasn’t his fault that he had a bit of an anger issue. He worked hard to keep it in check, attending therapy, taking CBD gummies, he even tried meditating.

You’d quickly come to realize that his anger was a front to hide his vulnerabilities. He was a horribly cocky and arrogant person outwardly. But inside, tucked away in a beat up box, was a messily stored collection of vulnerabilities and insecurities.

Anakin thrived on praise and affection, he was happiest when he was eight inches deep in your poor little fucked-out pussy. Bathing in the sounds of your babbled compliments, the sweet lilt of your whiny voice when you begged him for more. His favorite thing? The best compliment? The quickest way to reassure him of his worth? That was the devastatingly wet *shlck* of his cock sliding home between your thighs.

It never failed to astound him. The way your body responded to him, the way you were tucked under his thumb. When he was pounding into you night after night while your mother worked the late shift; that’s when he truly came to life.

You made him feel needed. Wanted. Valued. But most importantly? Worshipped.

There was nothing else like the rush of warm adoration he felt from every little noise your pretty mouth made. It flowed over his tired, work-worn body and soothed all his stress away. He needed it. He craved it. He had to have it.

You.

You were the only thing that mattered.

It would be an understatement to say that he regretted marrying your mother. Every second of every day he hated her more. She wasn’t you. She could never be you.

Divorce, the hours of research on annulments, laws and stipulations, the legality of things. He’d searched through it all. He had the best lawyer in the state on speed-dial. Set on retainer for the moment he saw his opportunity to snatch up his brand new trophy wife.

But it’s not exactly acceptable to divorce your wife of six months to run off with her freshly 18 year old daughter is it? No. But was he going to do it? Absolutely.

You were his good girl.

You were his good girl, til now.

Anakin crouched down in front of you, getting on your level somehow made you feel even smaller. Any other time you would’ve taken the time to admire his freshly washed hair that stuck to his forehead in little swoops, the scent of his cedar soap, his bare chest and that delicious V carved into his lower abdomen.

But instead all you could see was the hard line of his lips, his knitted eyebrows… he was trying so hard to be angry. But you could tell he was just in pain, those big beautiful blue eyes were holding back tears, and you so badly wanted to comfort him, to make him understand.

“Anakin. Please listen.” You pleaded with him, desperate to get him to hear you out.

“Oh? I’ve been listening.” He stood back up and grabbed your hair roughly, tilting your head back to force you into eye contact. “I just don’t believe what I heard.”

“Just look!” You said gesturing at your phone laying on the counter near him, the screen cracked. “Please just look at you’ll see.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of. Seeing what I already know is there.” He scowled.

“Am I not good enough for you?” He hissed, shaking your head by your hair. “Is that it?”

Before you could even answer him he grabbed your jaw and pried your mouth open and shoved two fingers down your throat.

“That’s alright. You don’t deserve me anyway.”

Collecting your saliva on his digits, he removed his fingers and flicked the spit on your face, making you flinch.

“Not even gonna waste my spit on you.” His voice tinged with hurt under the grit of his anger.

Your eyes welled up with tears, never had he spoken to you this way. You never imagined that he was capable of being so mean. Of course he had his issues, you’d argued plenty before you both finally allowed the hands of fate to shove you into each other’s arms. But never like this.

“I come home from work, see you sitting all pretty and patient for me.” He starts, his voice low and dark.

“Then I come back from the shower, ready to hold and love and spoil you just like I do every night. I leaned in to give you a sweet little kiss and what do I see?” You weren’t sure if he wanted an answer, so you stayed silent and waited. Apparently that was the wrong thing to do.

“I asked you a fucking question.” He grumbled. “You were so eager to talk earlier, so fucking talk.”

“You saw me decline a phone call.” You said quietly, trying hard to keep eye contact with him through the blurriness in your vision.

“A phone call from who?” He prodded.

“My friend Tyler.” You answered meekly.

“Exactly.” He released your hair by pushing you backwards, causing you to catch yourself with your elbow right on the granite tile flooring.

Pain shot up your upper arm and wracked your body with a momentary spasm of tension as your brain tried to sort out this new pain. Extended your arm gently you breathed in relief that it wasn’t actually damaged, but you would definitely have a gnarly bruise.

Anakin had turned around, his back to you. One hand on the kitchen counter and the other ruffling his wet hair, shaking off water droplets as he did so.

“Why?” He asked, his tone quieter but no less menacing. “Why would you hang up like that if there wasn’t anything to hide?”

“B-because Ani, I was talking to you!” You tried to explain as you stood up and hesitantly stepped closer to him.

“Don’t.” He barked over his shoulder. “Don’t you fucking touch me.”

“I was- okay.” You said, backing away.

“Anakin I was just trying to focus on you that’s all. You’d just gotten home, I didn’t want to be bothered while I was spending time with you.” Your whisper sounded cracked, broken.

“Why is a boy calling you at 8:00 on a Friday huh?” He spun around quickly and grabbed your arm.

“They’re not a-“ You tried to speak, to explain yourself but he didn’t give you a second breath.

He stole the air from your lungs and the words from your mouth with a resounding *smack* to your cheek. The impact was so forceful that your head felt like it was on swivel and you stumbled back. Too shocked to even cry, too hurt to look at him.

“Were you planning to cheat? Is that what this is?” He scoffed.

“N-no!” You squeaked. “No I wouldn’t! Never!”

He laughed, not in amusement or cynicism, but in a strangled bout of hysteria.

“And I’m supposed to believe that?” His teeth clenched and bared.

“You think someone else would treat you as well as I do? That they’d be able to put up with your attitude?” He laughed again, pointing his finger in your face.

“You’re a fucking brat you know that? There’s not another man in this galaxy who could love you like I do. You’re a spoiled bitch. But you’re my spoiled bitch.”

You flinched at his choice of words. He’d called you a brat plenty of times, sometimes even as a term of endearment. Bitch though? The thought of him calling you that was previously inconceivable.

“You want me to show you how someone else would treat you? How this stupid fucker Tyler would handle you?” He growled, putting a hand on the back of your neck and forcing you to your knees.

“Anakin wait! Just let-“ He shoved your face into the soft flannel of his pajama pants, fisting your hair to hold you in place while he ground his cock across your tear stained cheeks.

“No sweetheart I’m not Anakin right now remember? I’m anyone but me.” He corrected you.

“Take your fucking shirt off. I want to see those pretty tits.” He smirked as he watched you quickly comply. “There. Not so difficult Hmm?”

You shook your head no in agreement with him, hoping to appease him. You had no idea where this was going, but you knew for damn sure that you weren’t gonna like it.

“That’s right.” He said as he gripped your jaw once more, chuckling when you instinctively dropped your mouth open. “That was the last easy thing you’ll be doing tonight.”

“Pull out my cock.” He demanded, the look on his face giving no indication that this was negotiable.

You hesitated, then steeled yourself to comply with his order. His pretty cock, the beautiful thing that made you feel like you were floating amongst the clouds… was standing tall and proud. This was the only time you’d ever been unhappy to see it and you hoped it was the last time too.

“Oh don’t look at me like that.” He grumbled. “This is what you wanted isn’t it? To be a whore? To cheat on me?”

“No! Anakin Tyler isn’t-“ He scoffed and took advantage of your open mouth and forced your head down around his length.

“Fuck.” He mumbled his stomach muscles tightened momentarily before relaxing again.

“Finally some fucking peace and quiet. I’m sick of your whining. I don’t ever want to hear that fuckboy’s name again do you understand me?” He growled, his eyes filled with jealousy painted red with rage.

Anakin started to thrust quick and shallow into your mouth panting while he glared down at you like you were his mortal enemy.

“You like this?” He asked, watching you shake your head no vigorously. “No? Didn’t think you would.”

“Can’t fucking believe this shit.” He moaned, tipping his head back toward the ceiling before letting his chin fall to his chest.

He growled, seeing you drool down the column of your throat. A fire lit behind his eyes and burst into an inferno after only seconds of this brutal punishment.

“Move your tongue.” He commanded, jerking your head to the side when you didn’t do it immediately. “Fuck, that’s better.”

Your tongue lay flat against the under side of his shaft as his cockhead started to bully its way down your throat, in and out in deep ruthless strokes. Tears pricked your eyes and began to fall, this time from discomfort instead of the horrible emotional pain he’d dealt to you.

“What?” He laughed again, looking down at you with a menacing grin that didn’t meet his glassy eyes. “Don’t wanna be a whore anymore do you?”

You shook your head no to the best of your ability and Anakin nodded in agreement, his breath caught in his throat just like his cock was stuck in yours.

“This is how men treat whores.” He said matter of factly. “Like a stupid little fuck toy. Do you want to be a stupid fuck toy?”

“No of course you don’t.” He tsk’d. “You want to be my good girl, my sweet princess.”

You nodded vigorously, choking on his length accidentally from the quick movement.

Your gag reflex kicked in violently, caused by your choking fit as you tried to cough, your body begging for some control to be returned to you. You struggled to breathe as he continued his brutal assault on your throat. But despite the pain, there was an odd thrill running through you, a sick satisfaction knowing you were pleasing him in this way. You should hate him for what he’s doing right now, but it would be a lie if you said you didn’t find it alittle bit hot.

He was unraveling quickly, his hips snapping fast and deep. You heard the familiar change in breathing that happen just moments before he would cum, the cute little high-pitched whimpers that left his beautiful plump lips.

You tapped his thigh, looking up at him with furrowed brows and pleading eyes. Begging him to relent for just moment so you could breathe.

“No, I’m close. You can wait." he growled back, his pace unrelenting, but his voice becoming shaky.

“I don’t understand.” He panted, looking down at you with a pained expression. “Why would you want to be treated this way when I give you all the love in the world? When I love you so much?

“Seeing you hurt like this baby… it hurts me.” He sniffled, on the verge of tears.

“Just think, imagine it sweetheart; what if you went out there tonight and that horrible guy did this to you?” His eyebrows turned up in a deep swoop.

“You know I’m only doing this to help you right baby?” He let out a choked sob as his cock twitched in your mouth.

“I don’t want you to get hurt! I love you!” He cried out, his own tears freely flowing, salty drips hitting your face as he stared down at you with the face of a broken man.

“Promise me you won’t ever make me do this again.” He whispered, lovingly wiping the tears from your eyes. “I can’t stand it.”

“Promise? You won’t ever do it again? Please baby.” He cried, his chest heaving with a sob as his face scrunched up.

“Can’t do that to me, you can’t! I’d die.” He was practically hysterical, seeing him like this was tearing you apart in ways his rough treatment couldn’t. The pain and torture in his voice was a worse punishment.

“I wouldn’t wanna live without you. I wouldn’t.” He sobbed, his thumbs softly caress your cheekbones made you forget all about the way he was brutalizing you. It made you forget the hurtful things he’d said. You weren’t even sure your throat would be sore after this; how could it be worse than having your heart bruised the way Anakin’s must be?

“My sweet girl.” He sniffled. “My poor baby, I’m sorry. So sorry I had to do this. You understood don’t you doll?

You nodded, crying for an entirely different reason now. If you could, you’d be wailing. Pleading with him as you comforted him with kisses and gentle touches, holding him as he cried over your actions. How could you have done this? How could you be so cruel!?

“Good girl baby.” He hiccuped. “Good girl. I love you. Love you so much babydoll, g-gonna hold you n’ make love to you like you deserve.”

His hips stuttered against your mouth, his stomach tense and his hand tightened around your hair.

“My best girl.” He whined. “Do you want my cum? Those horrible bad men wouldn’t give it to you. They wouldn’t know how much you love it.”

You nodded, eyes rolling back in your head. He’s right. They wouldn’t know, how could they know? No one knew you like Anakin did.

“Mmm… yeah? G-goddamn.” He whimpered, pushing your face deep into his groin, your nose pressed firmly into the curly hairs at the base of his cock.

He sobbed, a full loud heart-wrenching sob as he came violently down your throat. You gratefully drank it down, thankful he’d let you have it after all you’d put him through.

Gently he pulled himself from your mouth, wiping his eyes dry as he sniffled. Tucking himself back into his pants before scooping you up into his arms and rocking you against his chest. Then he walked over to the recliner in the living room and sat down with you.

He let you cry it out while showering you with love and affection and beautiful sweet words in his warm honeyed voice. Finally once you’d calmed down he tilted your chin up to face him. Giving you a slow sensual kiss. The kind of kiss that was almost sticky, your lips wanting to stay connected for as long as possible.

“Are you okay sweetheart? Do you need anything?” He whispered against your lips in a pleading tone.

“No.” You shook your head, still taking shaky short gasping breaths. “M’so sorry Ani.”

“Oh baby. No, it’s okay.” He cooed. “You didn’t know. That’s why I had to teach you huh?”

“Uh huh.” You sniffled.

“You understand now don’t you doll? No body could ever love you like I do.” He squeezed you tightly as you agreed.

“That was horrible wasn’t it?” He sighed. “Those other boys… oh princess it would be so much worse you know that?”

“I couldn’t be as mean to you as they could, not even half as bad.” He said softly as if the information were scary to even say outloud.

“R-really?” You squeaked, not even half as bad? You shivered at the thought that if could ever be worse than he’d shown you.

“Yes baby.” He nodded, a sad and solemn expression on his tear streaked face.

“Th-thank you Ani.” You sniffled. Feeling grateful that he wasn’t even capable of what must be such horrendous brutality.

“Oh sweetheart. Don’t thank me,” he whispered, petting your head. “Just hold me and I’ll hold you okay? We both need alittle extra snuggles tonight after that don’t we?”

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whileiamdying · 4 months ago

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Bon Iver Is Searching for the Truth

The artist Justin Vernon discusses his new EP, “SABLE,” the dream of a happy adulthood, and his worry that he’s purposely repeating a “cycle of sorrow.”

By Amanda Petrusich October 16, 2024

Bon Iver is the alias of Justin Vernon, a singer, songwriter, and producer from Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Since 2007, when Vernon released “For Emma, Forever Ago,” his début LP as Bon Iver, he has been making formally experimental but gorgeously tender music that seems to take equal inspiration from Bruce Hornsby and the Indigo Girls, Arthur Russell and Aphex Twin. (The project name—a version of the French phrase “Bon hiver,” or “Good winter”—was borrowed from an episode of the television series “Northern Exposure,” a deep and formative work in Vernon’s life.) This week, Bon Iver will release “SABLE,” a three-song EP and the band’s first new music since 2019’s “i,i.” “SABLE,” is only a little more than twelve minutes long, but it feels revelatory, expansive, and raw. Vernon has a couple of different voices—a spectral falsetto; a deeper, throatier bellow—but it’s hard for me to think of another contemporary singer whose vocals carry quite as much pure, unmediated feeling.

Outside of Bon Iver, Vernon remains a wildly in-demand collaborator. He has a track on the newly remixed version of Charli XCX’s “brat” (he described the decision to participate as “a no-brainer,” saying “the art and the music, its aggression, its power, its pop-ness—it’s just amazing”), and he worked with Kanye West on “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy” (2010) and “Yeezus” (2013), two of the most acclaimed rap albums of the past few decades. He also appeared on Taylor Swift’s “folklore” and “evermore,” both from 2020; because of the pandemic, Vernon and Swift didn’t meet in person until long after “folklore” was released. “I wasn’t starstruck,” Vernon told me. “I was, like, ‘Wow, you’re somebody that I would have been very close friends with in high school. You’re real and you’re here.’ To see what she’s been up to, the propulsion, the expansion . . . I don’t know, it��s just unlike anything anyone’s ever seen. And yet there she was, this person who made a lot of sense to me.”

I previously spoke with Vernon at The New Yorker Festival in 2019. Earlier this month, we sat down again to record an episode of The New Yorker Radio Hour, and continued our conversation after we left the studio. This interview, a composite of both encounters, has been condensed and edited.

Justin, it’s so good to see you.

It’s great to see you, too, Amanda. I was pacing around my room today, like, “I’m anxious! Shit.” I haven’t talked to anyone about music in any official capacity since our last conversation, probably. It’s been five years. I was, like, “Oh, that’s why.” Your nervous system’s kinda keyed up, and you have to have a CBD gummy, take a breath. Walk around the block, do some push-ups.

Five years is a very civilized pace, I think, and you’ve hardly been silent during that time. But do you feel any internal or external pressure to produce work on a certain schedule?

Nope, not at all. This one really came from personal necessity. It was just time. Some of these songs have been bubbling for five years.

“SABLE,” is just twelve minutes of music, but, for me, it feels a lot bigger than that. I wanted to ask you about the grouping of these three songs, in particular. You mentioned that they were written at different times, but I hear a very legible arc—a closed circle, almost. I hear the story—and this is quite relatable, to be honest—of a person trying, and then a person failing, and then a person finding some peace with their limitations.

Are you me? [Laughs.] That feels right. They feel like an equidistant triangle, a triptych. It’s three, and it couldn’t be longer. It runs the gamut from accepting anxiety to accepting guilt to accepting hope. Those three things in a row. There’s no room for a prologue or an epilogue at that point. Because that’s it—that’s what everything is.

From a place of guilt and anxiety, how vast is the distance to hope?

My friend Erinn Springer, who made the videos for “SABLE,” was telling me that with [the track] “AWARDS SEASON,” the word for her was “almost.” Time and time again, I’ve been sitting at that feeling of almost: we’re almost there, or we’re just about to get there, I can feel or dream of a place that’s coming soon. And I guess that’s what the song is talking about—change, and how we’re always partaking in it.

This is maybe an incredibly personal question, but—

[Laughs.] That’s good.

When you get to the place of almost—the thing is in reach, you can see it, you can feel it, it’s really close—is that when you panic? Because that’s when I panic.

I think that’s when I have to push further. These songs, they’re personal, of course, but the need to share them is also very personal. These are songs with truth that I’ve located, or been a vehicle for. But they’re true. And I was, like, These have to be shared.

The public piece is complicated. It also seems possible that your relationship to fame might change; maybe you want it one year and the next year you don’t.

I remember there was this moment during the pandemic where I was, like, I could stop doing all of this. I was driving my little A.T.V. around. I needed that—knowing I could stop. But getting back on the road there’s all this excitement, and then, so quickly, the anguish and weariness and impossibility of it set back in.

Do you think you’ll pull back from touring?

I’ll share a pretty vulnerable moment. I knew that we were gonna be taking some time off. It was the beginning of our last run. I was in Duluth. My family was there. I was so happy to be with everyone, but I was really suffering under the weight of everything. I was playing “[715] CRΣΣKS”—there’s no accompaniment. It’s really a crusher to do. It burns a lot of gas. I was scanning the crowd. I was just having a tough month. I was getting ready to start saying goodbye to the last sixteen years, in a way. There were six or seven thousand people out there, and I became overwhelmed with anxiety and sadness. I got choked up and started to weep. My bandmates were all up on the stage, leaning down, because it’s too short of a song for them to leave and come back. I lock eyes with Waz [Jenn Wasner], I can see Michael Lewis looking at me. And I’m crying—like, hard. Shoulders-heaving crying. And I feel unsafe, like this is not an O.K. place for someone to be. And the crowd is going wild, you know? I’m not mad at them. I would also be cheering for encouragement. But I was thinking, They wantthis. Or this is making sense to them. It wasn’t all negative—

But it felt like there was blood in the water?

The rest of the show, I could barely function. If I could do that same touring setup and have somebody else sing the songs, that would be a little easier. But that whole night in, night out, let’s excavate Justin—I’m not built for it. When I say it like that, I think, How is anybody? But, that’s just me, I can’t.

Well, there’s so little distance in your work. I don’t know, maybe Bon Iver doesn’t need to be a road show.

When I used to go to shows, for me, they were excavations. They were explosions, they were unique. They were a band playing four new songs they made up last weekend, at an all-ages venue in Eau Claire. Or seeing Melt-Banana open for Mr. Bungle in, like, ’95—I’m watching something rip me open. And of course they were all also touring and doing the thing and everything, but just . . . I did it a lot, and I’m extremely proud of that achievement. I’m extremely proud of the team. When we were at Barclays, Yo La fuckin’ Tengo opened the show, and we played “Sh’Diah,” and Sean Carey’s doing free-jazz freakouts on drums, and Michael Lewis, my favorite living musician and improviser and soloist, he’s playing, and we are throttling free jazz to an arena that is absolutely understanding what we’re doing. And, like, check mark. Check mark! Thank God. But I can’t go to that well over and over again. It has to be something sacred—it has to renew. I come back to the name of the band. It’s a good band name, a good project name, because it’s like—good death, good winter. Things need rest. A life needs to rest at some point.

It’s funny, I used to be a cynic about things like weddings—why does it have to be a big, performative, public thing? But you realize that is sort of the profundity of it.

I put these songs out because I know there’s truth in them, and I want to share that with everybody. I think where it gets slippery is when it’s, like, “O.K., but we need to see the person who sings the song.” Lately, the song has seemed to be not enough. That’s the part that gets me a little sensitive. But that’s what art is, and that’s why I believe in art and expression so much. It does seem to be the thing that carries cultures forward, past their old haunts and problems.

I mean, I think art can be instructive as well as lifesaving. I’m certainly not the first person to suggest that. Historically, you’ve been pretty mindful. Even using the name Bon Iver puts a little air, a little space, between you and the world. But you’re in these videos. It was so lovely to see your face.

Thank you. It felt like there was a certain amount of acceptance in that. My great friend Eric Timothy Carlson, who does some of my art work, was, like, “Man, just when are you going to do your ‘Man in Black’ thing?” And I was, like, “Challenge accepted. Let’s go.” Hiding has been a valuable thing, and a way for me to express that I don’t think it’s all that important who I am—that the songs are most important.

For listeners who have been with you since “For Emma, Forever Ago,” I suspect the single, “SPEYSIDE,” might feel like a kind of return, insofar as it’s a little more stripped-down, a little less layered, than what you were doing on “22, a Million” or “i,i.” Do you think of the two poles of Bon Iver—music that’s minimally produced, versus music that’s maybe more maximally produced—as in opposition?

From “For Emma” until “i,i,” it felt like it was an arc, or an expansion—from One to All. “I,i” was very much me trying to talk about the We—the Us, outside of I. And when I got to these songs, the obvious thing was, well, people might think this is a return to something. But it really feels like a kind of raw second skin. I think about time in cylindrical, forward-moving circles. This feels like a new person, new skin. A new everything, more than a return. But I did feel like it was important to strip it down to just the bare essentials and get out of the way, to not hide with swaths of choirs. Just get it as close to the human ear as possible.

Can you talk a little about where and when you wrote “SPEYSIDE”?

The “SPEYSIDE” story is that I was in Key West. I had been living alone in the woods by myself, in Wisconsin, and it was getting dangerous. My parents had always gone down there, and I was, like, “You know what? I could just escape.” I went for three or four weeks. My brother and sister-in-law also came, and then we were, like, “Oh, this is so fun, we’ll stay another month.” It didn’t matter. They were just working from home. This was January, February of 2021, and I was reflecting a lot. The song came out mostly in its entirety. I was thinking about guilt and people in my life where I was just, like, “Oh, my God, I really did not do that right. I did not act the right way.” It just came rolling out, with help from rum. I would go out to the pier, and I would look back at Key West, and I’d see it as this island. I didn’t want to name the song “Key West,” although it would have been appropriate. Speyside is a region in Scotland, and it’s a whiskey. That’s the story with the song title. It was my little nod to southern Florida.

So, I have this running text thread with a close friend of mine where we text each other the loneliest things we can think of. We’ve been doing this for years. And so, every six months or so, I’ll get a text from him that will just say, —“Rental car shuttle, pre-dawn . . .”—

[Groans.]

Or “Horse, stuck in the mud.” A recurring character on our text thread is the pedal steel guitar.

Oh, man.

So the text will just be, “Pedal steel solo, Buck Owens, ‘Together Again.’ Apocalyptic!”

[Laughing.] That’s apocalyptic-sad right there!

There’s pedal steel on two of these three new songs. I’m curious about your relationship to the instrument.

Well, it’s a very good question, because it’s the most beautiful musical instrument that humans have constructed, for sure. It really is. It’s an impossibility, and truly an American invention. It mimics the voice, but there’s nothing else that slides between chords like that. They’ve been trying to make keyboards in this century that mimic that, and there’s just nothing like it. Greg Leisz is one of my favorite musicians to ever live, and I was very, very lucky to get to record him again. A very formative record for me was Bill Frisell’s “Good Dog, Happy Man.” That was the first time I ever heard Greg play. There’s a song on there called “That Was Then”—my high-school friends and I—we’re very, very, very close—we all have it as a tattoo. The moment in which we felt the most alive and together was this little seven-, eight-second passage where Greg played this pedal steel line. It’s the pinnacle of music to me. And so to get him on “SABLE,” is just amazing. He’s a master, right? And he’s so funny, and we get along so well, but even he’ll sit there and be, like, “Oh, shit, how does this go?” It’s just so many strings and pedals. But he’s always searching.

I don’t want to ask you too much about the lyrics, because there’s often an opacity and an obliqueness to your writing that I find incredibly beautiful; in a way, I’m not that interested in the literal meaning. So, feel free to fib your way through this part. But I did want to ask about the title. “Sable” is a synonym for “black.” It’s a piece of clothing that widows sometimes wear. It’s a river in Michigan that my fly-fishing friends tell me is holy water for trout. It’s also a weasel, though that maybe feels less relevant.

Yeah, that cutie!

You use it as a noun in “AWARDS SEASON”: “But I’m a sable / and honey, us the fable.” Can you talk a little bit about what the word means to you?

It’s such a good question. For years and years, it’s just been there. There’s an outtake from the second record, I think, where I used it in a lyric. I don’t know what it is, but it’s true. I wrote it and I knew it was true, and I still didn’t know what it meant. I was, like, “Be O.K. with that.” But then I looked it up. Sable. Mourning. Deepest black. Also, place name. But what isit? For me, I think when I’m speaking that line, what it refers to is being the darkness. There have been times in my career where it has felt like I’m repeating a cycle of heartache. I was getting a lot of positive feedback for being heartbroken. And I wondered, maybe I’m pressing the bruise. Maybe I’m unknowingly steering this ship into the rocks over and over again, because . . . you know, I’m not, like, famous-on-the-street, People-magazine famous. But there have been a lot of accolades for me and my heartache. So it’s me asking the question: I’m a sable, I’ve been a sable. Am I repeating this cycle of sorrow? Or is this just how sorrow goes, and this is how everyone feels? That’s kind of what it means to me.

I hear joy and wonder in the work, too. But you’re right, that heartache is a part of the story of the Bon Iver. I think it’s easy to be dismissive and say, “Well, that’s a toxic notion, that artists need to suffer to make work.” But pain is generative, in a way.

That’s a really good way to say it.

When we’re grieving, when we’re hurting—I mean, grief is also an expression of love. I hate to say all of this, it seems like a terrible idea to perpetuate, but—

I think it’s either the most surface or the deepest thing. And, like we said before, grief can only come from the highest joys, the greatest things in life, you know? There were some things that I really needed to find out about myself in these songs. And so, in that regard, it’s been worth it, because I needed these songs to find out how I felt, and to really, actually say how I’ve been feeling.

I think of you as a person who considers language kind of pliable. And not just language but punctuation, too. You’ve made up some words. My favorite Bon Iver neologism is “fuckified.” It’s almost Shakespearean! Where does that playfulness come from?

When you said punctuation, my first thought was, I just did it wrong. But, no, it’s just expression. One of my best friends growing up—we’re still really close—we get into semantic arguments sometimes. He’ll say, “Justin, you can’t say something is super unique, or really unique. It’s either unique or it’s not.”

Your friend should get a job at The New Yorker.

Shout out to Keil! It’s the “SABLE,” thing. I didn’t really know what it was. And the “fuckified” in “10 d E A T h b R E a s T ⚄ ⚄”—you just have to kind of let it out as an expression. You brought up the opacity of my lyrics. It really feels like I’ve sort of found this new narrative structure in these songs, where it’s a little more clear what’s been going on, and I’m kind of just saying it, versus dancing around it.

The stories feel really close. Your voice feels really close. It’s a little like having you in the room.

I wanted it to be like that. To be right in your ear, you know?

“AWARDS SEASON” opens with the line “I can handle much more than I can handle”—that line flays me every time I hear it. I think it’s possible to perhaps understand those words as a person admitting to being overwhelmed. But, to me, it mostly sounds like someone discovering that they’re stronger than they thought they were. We’re lucky to learn that about ourselves in really tough moments, that we are actually pretty—

Resilient. And then there’s the spot where you know you gotta turn around and go back, because the mechanism isn’t working anymore. The metaphor I’ve always used is that it’s like running an engine with no oil. You are doing long-term damage. It takes a long time to re-oil, to reset the machine. My dad and I watched the Buster Douglas–Mike Tyson fight when I was growing up. Douglas’s mom had just passed but he still beat Tyson in Tokyo. Douglas would say you just have to “Suck it up.” My dad always says that. When I’m feeling like I’m not gonna make it, I remember my dad saying that to me. I don’t know—there’s times to suck it up and move on and get through it, and then there’s times where you gotta take a knee, and say, “You know what? I’m not strong enough for this, and I can’t do this alone.”

As you were saying that—“suck it up”—I was thinking, is that good advice? I think sometimes it is, right? And then, often, it is not, and it’s more complicated, and you need to ask for help and take care of yourself. But there are moments where we have to test ourselves a little bit, see what we can bear, what we can handle.

Yeah, right?

That Midwestern stoicism runs deep in the Vernon men.

Yeah, it does.

Speaking of healing: you’ve discussed the utility of psychedelic drugs in your life, in terms of managing anxiety or enabling creativity. I suffered abig loss two years ago, and there were times when the immensity of my grief felt truly insurmountable, to the extent that I wanted to manually reset my brain, to restore my capacity for happiness or lightness. There’s evidence suggesting that psychedelic therapies can be quite useful for grief. I’m still sort of figuring out if it makes sense for me. But I’m curious how that stuff fits into your life these days.

Well, these days, not much. It’s not in my life anymore, really. I once thought about pot, it’s sort of like going to the bowling alley and putting those bumpers up. It’s, like, “This rules. Every ball, I hit pins. Every idea I have has got legs.” After a number of years, that feeling gets really addictive. Mushrooms, LSD—there were times where it was very, very therapeutic. I think I look at it like opening a door. It has certainly stirred deeper pits of empathy and understanding and oneness with human beings and the world. Those were ideas I already had, but now solidified—that we are each other, and hurting one another is not going to get us anywhere but down. But the metaphor about it opening a door . . . you have to close a door. If you leave that door open too long, the snow’s gonna come in and you’re gonna get fried. I don’t look back with many regrets, although I do look back with accountability and a sense of reckoning.

Looking at your discography, I presume a kind of hunger in you for collaboration. You once said, “Power has come to me, but it’s not fun to wield by yourself, and it’s not as useful if it’s just your vision.” What appeals to you about resisting the auteur path?

I love this question. I believe in the power of the individual—don’t get me wrong—but I’ve always just found that it distracts from the point. Why do we like a song? Is it because of who’s singing it to us? Or is it the song? And I just think it’s the song. For me, it is. For me, it’s about the song and what the music does. It can be very distracting when it becomes, “Oh, I love Bon Iver so much. I want more Bon Iver. I want to see Bon Iver. I want to get his autograph.” I’m sensitive to it, and the attention can be overwhelming. I’m also uncomfortable with it because it distracts from the point that music delivered me to myself.

But I can also say when I first heard “Hello in There,” by John Prine, I was twelve years old, and I saw a universe of human joy and pain and love and life and death, all in three minutes. And of course I’m gonna be, like, “What was that?” And it’s useful, right, to have a name or whatever. But I’ve also found that in moments where I’ve thought, Oh, maybe I am really good at this, or really special, or I’ve got some sort of gift—really I’ve just rigged up a huge antenna to catch things. I have gotten better at crafting songs. But I just don’t need to dwell on it, and it’s not going to make the songs any more true or less true.

I wonder if what you’re talking about, the emphasis that we place on performers and performance, I wonder if it’s because—this is a very funny thing for me to say as a music critic—no one understands songwriting? Even songwriters! A lot of people speak of the process as almost this sort of divine channelling, wherein a sound or an idea or a melody comes to them, and they’re just receiving and recording it. It’s easier to be, like, there’s a guy up there and he’s singing and he has a voice and I also have a voice, that makes sense. But this other thing, where does the signal come from?

I mean, that’s the big question, right? Why are we worried about what happens when we die? What are we trying to find out? What is this mystery that we all seem to agree is there?

And music, in particular—neurologists are always studying it, trying to understand why it works on us—there’s no clear evolutionary advantage or reason for people to be absolutely devastated or buoyed by music. But we are, and we always have been. Maybe there’s a little bit of God in it.

Having been atheist and an agnostic at different times in my life, growing up Lutheran and then studying world religion in college, I was cynical, almost angry that when we use the word “God,” we’re so often misusing it. But I’ve been saying the word again lately, because I’m sick and tired of saying “synchronicity and coincidence.” And I just don’t know what else to call it. I’ve had friends who are deeply, deeply religious, and they talk about what God means to them. I’ve been a little more open to it. I’m certainly not a theist. But I like the word “God” and I’m back to using it.

The performance piece of it and the writing-recording piece of it—I’m not a musician, but they almost feel diametrically opposed to me. It’s weird that anyone can do both.

Nobody ever says that, but I agree. I’ve always looked at ’em like they’re the masculine and the feminine. They are a yin and yang. Masculine is live.

It’s power.

Yeah, it’s out. The record is so timeless and concave, or whatever the metaphors are. I actually mixed the EP. These are my performances. These are the moments that I wanted to create. I’m not going to think about how to instantly re-create them [onstage]. I’ve been working on this song for five years. I’m not gonna do that to myself. I’m not gonna do that to these songs. I really worked hard on getting the guitar to sound like it’s in your head on “SPEYSIDE.” I’m gonna let that breathe for a second, before I get out there and go “Woooooo!”

To return to collaboration: it forces you to be incredibly honest and vulnerable. Things that are hard for me—things that are hard for a lot of people. You have to have a line of communication open that allows you to be really frank about what’s working. How has that been for you? Have there been moments where your vision has not aligned with someone else’s? Have you ever had to scream, “Get out of my studio!”?

Twice. You know who you are. . . . [Laughs.] I think there are just times when you have to communicate. You mentioned Midwestern stoicism. I just learned that saying how you feel is really important. I’m, like, forty-three years old. [Laughs.]

Can you teach me?

Oh, God, it’s really hard. You just have to do it. It sucks. But saying, “Oh, just try it again,” is a way of saying, “That wasn’t it.” And then sometimes you’re, like, “Well, it’s never going to be it,” and then you don’t really have to say anything. So I never had to practice being super honest. I would just be, like, “Well, I’m not going to use that,” or “I’m going to redo that later,” or “I’ll edit it.” “I’ll chop it up later,” is what they say. But, yeah, of course, some of my longtime collaborators, like Rob Moose, we just have a language that we’ve built over the years. It’s pretty easy for us to find what each other wants. And we’re both very good at giving space to the other. Like, “O.K., I’m not sure what you mean, but let’s explore that.” Rob’s one of my favorite collaborators, if not my favorite. Musically, what I’ve gotten to achieve with him is just kind of wild.

You and I are around the same age—twenty-nine.

[Laughs.] Yep . . .

And I wonder what this era of life—some people, not me, but some people might call it middle age—has felt like for you.

Kind of like graduating from a master’s program or something. Feeling a little old, a little aged out, a little like Chris Farley at the bottom of the hill in “Black Sheep” saying, “What in the hell was that all about?” Like I said, I think I’ve been reckoning a lot with times I haven’t been so great, or times I haven’t been able to be a good brother or family member. While I feel a little weary, I feel very young in another way, in the sense that I get a chance now not only to look back but to look forward. Kind of a refresh. Not a restart—these are forty-three-year-old bones. But I’m taking care of my body more. I’m taking care of my mental health more. And if I look back and see a lot of suffering in my past it’s because I wasn’t treating myself correctly. Certainly, I’ve had everything I’ve needed to be flourishing, to be a kind and loving person. But when I look back, I see a lot of confusion, anxiety, and despair. So I’ve gotten to this point now—and these songs have really helped me open that door, or whatever the metaphor is—to start a new journey and to be alive and present and grateful from now on, as much as I can be.

In one’s early forties, there’s often that feeling of, Oh, this isn’t quite what I thought was going to happen.

“Nothing’s really happened like I thought it would.” My best friend Trevor always refers to it as “the memory of the future.” When we were young, if our childhood was good, we project ourselves into a happy adulthood. You start to put pieces together, you start moving the furniture around. And then when you actually get there you realize you’ve been trying to steer toward that so hard that you kind of missed some shit, and it’s never gonna be like how it was. . . .

Sometimes we end up chasing these ideas from our childhoods, and they guide us for the rest of our lives, for better or worse.

I feel like we are barely driving. I look at it like you’re yanking on the wheel. You’re down below, by the gas and brakes. But that’s all we’ve got.

I can’t tell if that makes me feel helpless, or if it makes me feel empowered. Helpless in the sense of, “I’m not in control of this.” But it’s also freeing in the sense of, “I’m not in control of this.” Right?

Exactly. That is a freedom.

_The idea that life just follows some twisted path, like a river—

That’s been one of my favorite metaphors for life. The Daoist concept of the way of the water. Life is like a river, and if you don’t stay in the flow you’re gonna get stuck. You might get pulled under, you might be on shore or in a bend for too long. Or you can go down the river and drown, or flourish, or get to the Holy Land, or whatever. . . .

Who knows!

It’s multiple choice. Actually, it’s not multiple choice at all. Actually, not choice at all. Multiple possibilities.

“SABLE,” starts in a place of contrition, which is part of the process of becoming hopeful. But it ends in a moment of radical possibility.

Mm-hmm. It does. It’s that “almost” word again. It’s, like, we’re right almost there. Almost.

Maybe now the Almost feels less scary.

We’ve been through some things.

You made most of “i,i” at Sonic Ranch, in Texas, but “SABLE,” was recorded at April Base, your studio in Eau Claire. Do you work differently there than in other places?

Yeah. It’s been a big reflection point. It just so happened that April Base went under an intense renovation process right at the beginning of 2019, and that’s when we moved most of the stuff to Texas and set up there for almost a couple months. But then, when the record was done and we went on that tour, by that time, it was 2020. And then the pandemic happened and the studio was empty, so I had to move into this small house on the property and live there by myself. I kind of set up a makeshift studio. It was really a good experience, because I hadn’t set up my own gear in a long time.

The ritual of untangling the cables, plugging things in . . .

Oh, man, there was a point where I was, like, “I need to switch the screen so it’s over there.” It took me three days to untangle the cables. And I was, like, “This is good for me! This is really good for me.” But to answer your question about being out there: I think, for years—during the psychedelic mind-opening years, especially—everything was expanding quickly. Then, at a certain point, it started to feel a little stagnant. My social life, my creative and collaborative life . . . there was a circle and everything was inside of it. I hadn’t met a lot of new friends. I hadn’t really been in other studios. And so I think there’s been a little bit of action in the last couple years of, like, let me get out of here a little more.

And now you’re spending time in California. How does that feel?

Necessary.

All that sunshine.

I mean, holy hell. I am Wisconsin, through and through. But if I’m just there then what is April Base for? And what’s my love of Wisconsin for if I don’t have to come back to it? Also, it’s a little lonely out there. A lot of my family and my oldest friends have all moved away. And so I also haven’t had a lot of opportunity to meet new friends that weren’t somehow connected to the past—

Or to your work.

Or to my work. In L.A., it was just, “Hi, my name is Justin.” “Hi, my name is So-and-So.” “Do you want to be friends?” “This is great.” And I almost started crying when I realized—this is my first new friend, based on normal circumstances, in sixteen or seventeen years. That’s been a very positive thing. There’s a little anonymity for me, walking around. A lot of anonymity in Los Angeles, in particular. So it’s been very positive and challenging, in the best ways.

What you’re saying about making new friends in midlife—I get it, there’s a giddiness to it. It’s nice to meet new people now because we’re always changing, and here’s this newest, freshest iteration of you, and you get to present that to someone, instead of them inheriting a bunch of ideas.

You don’t have to open your book and be, “Who am I again? This is how I am? These are the things I believe in? Let me just make sure I get all that. . . .” You can just be. ♦

#The New Yorker #Bon Iver #Amanda Petrusich #Eau Claire #Wisconsin

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