It’s hard to pinpoint just what it is about For Emma, Forever Ago that tickles the fancy of so many. I mean, I could rattle off a laundry list about what makes it one of my contenders for album of the decade. But if you were to ask me why Emma has received such unequivocal praise, I would be hard-pressed to find an answer. Certainly, Vernon’s falsetto is endearing, his lyrics evocative, and his story compelling, but a truly great album is more than the sum of its parts. A truly great album not only evades words, but transcends them. And a truly great album we have in Emma.

Certain albums are lauded for being especially effective lenses that zero in on a particular subject with finesse, but others, like Emma, are more important in the sense that they are all-encompassing. Emma represents all that is Justin Vernon, and he says as much in the first line of the emotional denouement of the album, ‘Re: Stacks’.

“This [is] my excavation, and today is Qumran”

Lyrically, Vernon remains abstract in subject matter, often eschewing the more obvious choices in favor of the intangible. As many other critics have noted since the album’s 2007 release, what the lyrics lack in lucidity, they make up for in sheer power and simple humanity. But on the rare occasion when Vernon chooses to form his words in a more concrete sense, the distinction is both noticeable and welcome. “It’s hard to find it when you knew it, when your money’s gone and you’re drunk as hell” succeeds the aforementioned first verse, which may be consistent in terms of subject but stands in stark contrast in terms of delivery. Really, this can serve as a summation of the record as a whole: For Emma is a cosmic tug-of-war, and Vernon is the rag in the middle.

Let’s pretend, for a moment, that For Emma, Forever Ago is a play. ‘Flume’ is its exposition, and right off the bat, we are introduced to Vernon as a person. The diffuse, hazy harmonies in ‘Lump Sum’  suggest a looming incident, but the rising action of ‘Skinny Love’ is where things really start to happen; a breakup asks more questions than it answers, and Vernon is left trying to pick up the pieces. Were the album laid out like the tragedy that it so often resembles, ‘The Wolves’ would serve as its climax, and as such, it is here where Vernon’s tragic flaw is exposed: he is a man of the past, capable of looking at today only through the prism of yesterday. As he laments “what might have been lost”, the listener gets the impression that he is trying his hardest to reach a sense of catharsis. Some meaningful sound in the white noise of lost love. ‘Creature Fear’ and ‘Team’ are as confused as they are gorgeous, with their out-of-tempo percussive crescendos and wandering musical centers symbolizing Vernon’s fateful search for contentment.

So does Vernon ever reach that sense of purpose he was striving for? Shut away in that infamous Wisconsin cabin, alone with his thoughts, does he overcome his tragic flaw? Perhaps not, but at very least, he’s made peace with it…

“This is not the sound of a crispy realization…
It’s the sound of the unlocking and the lift away.”

…and really, that’s all that any of us can do. Those three months in isolation didn’t change Justin Vernon a bit; it just made him understand himself a little better. And I can honestly say that For Emma, Forever Ago did the same for me. Could that be why Emma has received such universal acclaim? It’s hard to tell. Maybe the cynic in me will always blame the proverbial Pitchfork placebo effect. But I’d like to think that Justin Vernon has genuinely touched others the way his music has touched me.

John Spencer

Honorable Mentions (Part 1)
Honorable Mentions (Part 2)
#50-41
#40-31
#30-21
#20-11
#10 / #9 / #7 / #6 / #5 / #4 / #3 / #2 / #1