Another one from The Stand Ins Sessions. Chapter Four brings us Justin Vernon, wearing a shirt with sleeves for the first time all summer, applying the upper reaches of his internet-famous falsetto to Okkervil River’s “Blue Tulip.” Like the others we’ve posted (Carl Newman’s “Lost Coastlines” with Will Sheff, and David Vandervelde’s “Singer Songwriter,” if you’re keeping score), it comes sans band. As For Emma fans can attest, though, Bon Iver is particularly well suited to coming sans band. (However he is joined on some late accompanying vocals by roadmates Mike Noyce and Sean Carey, who fill out the typical live Iver lineup.) Justin starts with Will’s melody up an octave, keeping it in his head voice throughout, substituting the original’s swing in favor of the yearning folk makeover you’d probably expect him to. (It’s pretty much as lovely as you expect, too).
The Stand Ins is out 9/9 via Jagjaguwar. Bon Iver’s For Emma came out forever ago, also on Jag.
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Rockin’ the Collections of Colonies of Bees shirt – nice!
wouldn’t that be chapter 3???
Actually “Blue Tulip”‘s the fourth proper track on the album. Chapter Three was a cover of “Starry Stairs” by Jack Ladder:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZvLs4b8Uqo
I gotta say I’m only half onboard with the rural American trend (Dodos, yay! Fleet Foxes, meh) and so it goes for, uhm, For Emma. But I saw BI last night (troubadour) and they were fairly spectacular. (The guitar player kid musta been 14 what?)
Seriously – how old is that kid? And…this is just beautiful.
The kid is 20 years old. Bon Iver mentioned it at the show here in Wlliamsburg a few weeks back.
the dodos, yes! leaders of the pack, but still relatively under the surface, that will change
this guy not bad, but can’t understand a damn word, can’t hit high notes either, solid guitar player
I like that Shawn is reading Dwell magazine. Listening to Collections of Colonies of Bees? reading Dwell? What a bunch of yuppies.
wow, this is immensely better than the original. bon iver is pretty incredible. took a pretty bland song and made it heart-breaking. nice.
damn. this guy IS priceless. weird how he can perform this song so enchantingly eventhough it looks like he is sitting in some doctors waiting room.
Cool stuff Bon Iver dudes!
mike noyce (the guitar player in question) just turned 21, and much drink was had.
also, this is great.
bon iver is so good.