The Story Behind The Song: The bodily betrayal and heartbreak behind Bon Iver’s ‘Skinny Love’
‘Skinny Love’ is Bon Iver’s best-known and most chronically misunderstood song. The third track taken from their debut studio album For Emma, Forever Ago, ‘Skinny Love’ has historically been a victim of its own name, leading people to think it’s a song about eating disorders.
Founded by singer-songwriter Justin Vernon in 2006, Bon Iver is an indie-folk band from Wisconsin. The same year Vernon formed the band, he was still reeling from the breakup of DeYarmond Edison, his previous outfit. They had started as friends, evolving out of yet another one of Vernon’s old bands, Mount Vernon.
The musicians met at a Wisconsin jazz camp, playing in various incarnations until settling on the final DeYarmond Edison line-up in 2002, recording two albums, the eponymous DeYarmond Edison and Silent Signs. Their music was a sign of things to come for Vernon, forming the beginnings of the folk-infused, atmospheric sound he’d capitalise on as part of Bon Iver.
After enjoying a brief period of success in their hometown Eau Claire, the band upped sticks and moved to Raleigh, North Carolina, to grow their career in a newer, bigger place. But the ensuing change led to creative tensions about the band’s direction, resulting in the announcement of their break-up in a statement issued to MySpace in 2006.
Around this time, Vernon had become severely unwell with mononucleosis, which added to his mental load and weakened his liver. He was exhausted, ill, and in need of a recharge. As a result, he moved back to Wisconsin, holed up in his father’s cabin, and didn’t leave for three months. It was a fruitful period of total isolation for the songwriter, who wrote the entirety of Bon Iver’s debut, recorded and produced it himself.
‘Skinny Love’ is the most enduringly popular song from that record. A brooding song that sees his body betray him (“Staring at the sink of blood and crushed veneer” / “Cut out all the ropes and let me fall”), it could be argued its writing was influenced by his illness.
However, the physicality of his lyrics are most overtly about heartbreak rather than illness or eating disorders, as some assume. Vernon clarified with Pitchfork: “It’s about that time in a relationship that I was going through; you’re in a relationship because you need help, but that’s not necessarily why you should be in a relationship. And that’s skinny. It doesn’t have weight. Skinny love doesn’t have a chance because it’s not nourished.”
The emotional pain broached followed his split from his girlfriend, Christy Smith. With his band and relationships in tatters, it makes total sense that lyrically, he’s clinging onto a relationship that seems over already. He is pleading when he almost whispers, “Come on, skinny love, just last the year,” in the opening line. He’s acknowledging the love he’s holding onto isn’t working but dedicates entire passages to instructing his lover to be patient and hold on a little while longer.
Vernon’s falsetto mirrors his emotional fragility, and it’s why so many fans have sound solace in this heartbreak anthem.
