Bon Iver: Full Concert | NPR MUSIC FRONT ROW

On Dec. 4, just before Bon Iver took the stage at Pioneer Works, an old ironworks warehouse turned nonprofit arts and culture space, these prophetic words from Union Army officer Sullivan Ballou echoed off the Civil War-era brick walls: “Sarah, my love for you is deathless, it seems to bind me to you with mighty cables that nothing but Omnipotence could break; and yet my love of Country comes over me like a strong wind and bears me irresistibly on with all these chains to the battlefield.“ A week after writing those lines, Ballou was mortally wounded, dying for a cause in which he firmly believed. At first, these words struck me as disconnected from the evening’s music. Bon Iver’s new record, 22, A Million, feels so distant from the Civil War and the words of Sullivan Ballou. But there’s a very real kinship between the letter and this band. Believing in what you do is essential to Justin Vernon and the music he creates for Bon Iver, and impermanence and duality are p