Tag: Super Bowl Songs

Super Bowl Songs: Bon Iver & “Wisconsin”

Bon Iver Wisconsin“Wisconsin” by Bon Iver (click play button)

Bon Iver For EmmaChimesfreedom continues its celebration of today’s Super Bowl battle between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Green Bay Packers with a song about the home of the Packers: “Wisconsin” by Bon Iver.

Although Bon Iver’s “Wisconsin” is a recollection of events that happened in Wisconsin, the song is more universal. The narrator is singing about a lost love and his memories of their time in Wisconsin.

Bon Iver is the recording name taken by Justin Vernon, and “Wisconsin” is a hidden track on Bon Iver’s 2007 album, For Emma, Forever Ago. Most of the album was written by Justin Vernon during a time of seclusion in a Wisconsin cabin. Following a break up with his former band, an illness, and the end of a relationship, Vernon moved from North Carolina to his childhood state of Wisconsin to live alone in his father’s cabin for almost four months. Out of his pain, he created the album.

You’re up on the bar and your shaking
With every grimy word
Who will love
Whats love when you’ve hurt
You wonder as you see the snow kissed the curb
Love is loves return

That was Wisconsin that was yesterday
Now I have nothing that I can keep
Cause every place I go I take another place with me
Love is loves critique

Vernon took the name Bon Iver from an episode of Northern Exposure where residents of Cicely, Alaska emerged from their homes after the first snow to wish each other “bon hiver” — French for “good winter.”

Have a good Super Bowl Sunday and be safe. Bon hiver.

Bonus Cheerier Songs: If you would like a “happier” song set in Wisconsin, here is the opening to Laverne & Shirley.

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    Super Bowl Songs: Pete Seeger & “Pittsburgh Town”

    FootballAs you prepare for a day of watching commercials occasionally interrupted by a football game played by the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Green Bay Packers, Chimesfreedom considers songs inspired by the states in the big game. An upcoming post will address the state of the Packers, but this post considers the hometown of the Steelers: Woody Guthrie’s “Pittsburgh Town,” recorded by Pete Seeger.

    Like some other songs sung by Guthrie and Seeger, “Pittsburgh Town” takes on the big corporate interests. For Pittsburgh, at the time, that meant attacking the steel industry: “What did Jones & Laughlin steal now Pittsburgh?” But the song ends by defiantly proclaiming the workers are organizing and joining the Congress of Industrial Organizations (a precursor to the AFL-CIO).

    All I do is cough and choke in Pittsburgh
    All I do is cough and choke in Pittsburgh
    All I do is cough and choke
    From the iron filings and the sulphur smoke
    In Pittsburgh, Lord God, Pittsburgh

    From the Allegheny to the Ohio, in Pittsburgh
    Allegheny to the Ohio
    Allegheny to the Ohio
    They’re joining up in the C.I.O.
    Pittsburgh, Lord God, Pittsburgh

    According to Ed Cray’s Ramblin’ Man: The Life and Times of Woody Guthrie, most of the lyrics to the song were improvised when Guthrie was performing for Jones & Laughlin employees after Guthrie had just seen the workers’ poor living conditions. Guthrie may not have been in too good of a mood, having just spent the night in hotel infested with cockroaches.

    Bonus Cheerier Songs: Yeah, the song is depressing, and maybe I’m mad my team did not make the Super Bowl. If you would like a “happier” song, here is Charlie Daniels “In America” (“Go and lay your hand on a Pittsburgh Steelers fan / and I think you’re finally gonna understand”).

    Do you have another Pennsylvania song you like? Leave a comment.

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