Justin Vernon was sick of being sad — maybe even physically ill from it, depending on how his opaque interview comments are to be understood. In the run-up to SABLE, fABLE, the first Bon Iver album in almost six years, Vernon has spoken about feeling trapped inside the performance of emotional distress that has defined his band since debut album For Emma, Forever Ago, with its readymade narrative of a broken man pouring his heart out in a remote cabin. Multiple times he has recalled an instance when he began weeping onstage after catching a glimpse of a struggling friend and the audience responded rapturously, as if he was giving them exactly what they came to see.
