“Nothing’s really happened like I thought it would,” Justin Vernon sings on his first single as Bon Iver in four years, the melancholy “Speyside.” The single, accompanied by a music video directed by the acclaimed young photographer Erinn Springer (who, like Vernon, is from Wisconsin), drops on Friday, Sept. 20.
Vernon hasn’t released new Bon Iver music since 2020, when he dropped the standalone singles “AUATC” and ‘PDLIF’; his last full-length album was 2019’s I, I. Also in 2020, he popped up on Taylor Swift’s Folklore, dueting on “Exile.”
Judging by a snippet released on Instagram, “Speyside” is stripped down, with Vernon’s vocals backed by his own acoustic guitar and longtime collaborator Rob Moose on viola. Vernon debuted the song in a similar arrangement back in 2022 in Scotland, with saxophone in place of viola, and has played it live five times since.
“When I made this song, I was feeling a lot of guilt,” he said before one early performance of the track at the O2 Arena in London. “Which is an important emotion to have. It’s also an important emotion to put yourself past. The day I wrote it, I got a little drunk on rum and sent it to a couple of friends who are here tonight. I’m thankful to have a friend to send a song to. You can’t just put that shit on MySpace anymore!”
“Speyside” seems to tell a tale of aching regret, romantic or otherwise. “I know now that I can’t make good,” Vernon sings. “How I wish I could…. What is wrong with me/I’m so sorry/ I got the best of me… Well, maybe you can still make a man from me/ Here on Speyside Quay.”
In early August, Vernon performed at a Wisconsin rally for Kamala Warris and Tim Walz, where he played his take on the 1862 patriotic tune “Battle Cry For Freedom.” “We’re here for the right reasons,” he said from the stage, “and we all know what we’re here for, so we’re going to do our thing.”
