Bon Iver THINGS BEHIND THINGS BEHIND THINGS Lyrics And Meaning: Looking Deeper at Self-Reflection and Disillusionment

Bon Iver’s SABLE, EP may only be three songs, but it’s packed with layers of emotion and meaning that are worth exploring more deeply. After Justin Vernon’s recent interview with The New Yorker, where he opened up about everything from his relationship with fame to the emotional toll of touring, SABLE, is a personal journey for him.

As someone with a background in English lit and creative writing, I’ve always found that diving into lyrics like these through a more literary lens helps reveal deeper themes. In this article, I’ll share my own interpretations of the “THINGS BEHIND THINGS BEHIND THINGS” lyrics, drawing on poetry and classic literature to highlight how these ideas of self-reflection, fear, and complexity are timeless.

There was a lot to take away from the interview, and Vernon describes SABLE, as a “raw second skin,” a project where he works through intense personal emotions like anxiety, guilt, and hope. That’s a lot to pack into just 12 minutes of music, but with lines like “I see things behind things behind things,” it’s clear there’s a lot more going on beneath the surface. I’ll be leaning on my love for literary comparisons to explore how these lyrics mirror themes in works by poets like Rainer Maria Rilke, Samuel Beckett, and Jorge Luis Borges.

My hope is that by connecting “THINGS BEHIND THINGS BEHIND THINGS” to classic literature, we can uncover a more nuanced understanding of what Vernon is trying to express—how he’s using his music to process personal change and the layers of thoughts that keep pulling him back in.

Bon Iver THINGS BEHIND THINGS BEHIND THINGS Lyrics

Bon Iver THINGS BEHIND THINGS BEHIND THINGS Meaning:

“I would like the feeling… gone”

This opening line shows the speaker wants to escape a difficult feeling. Right off the bat, we see they’re struggling with something inside that they don’t want to face. They’re not just talking about a specific emotion—they’re talking about an overall sense of discomfort. They want this feeling to disappear but aren’t sure how to get rid of it.

This connects to how Rainer Maria Rilke talks about facing uncomfortable truths in The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge. Rilke writes, “Who has not sat before his own heart’s curtain? It lifts: and the scenery is falling apart.” Rilke, like the speaker, understands the fear of seeing something in yourself that feels broken or disjointed.

Both the speaker and Rilke’s protagonist feel trapped in a world where everything is falling apart, especially when it comes to their own emotions. The speaker wants to get rid of this difficult feeling, but it’s not something that’s easy to let go of.

“I get caught looking in the mirror… on the regular”

The mirror image here is key. The speaker feels like they’re constantly looking at themselves but seeing someone they don’t recognize or like. They say, “What I see there resembles some competitor,” which suggests they’re not just looking at their reflection—they’re judging themselves, as if they’re competing with who they think they should be.

This line shows a deep sense of dissatisfaction and self-criticism…

This reminds me of how Rilke writes about self-reflection and disillusionment. He says, “I live my life in growing orbits, which move out over the things of the world.” Here, he talks about feeling distant from himself and the world around him, much like the speaker feels distanced from their own reflection.

Both Rilke and the speaker are trapped in a cycle of looking at themselves and not liking what they see.

“I see things behind things behind things”

This lyric brings up layers—things hidden behind other things, showing how the speaker feels that life is more complicated than it looks on the surface. They’re not just dealing with one problem; there’s a deeper layer to everything. The speaker feels stuck, like they can’t get to the bottom of their own thoughts or emotions.

This idea is very similar to how Jorge Luis Borges talks about life in his work Labyrinths. Borges often wrote about life as a series of mazes or puzzles, saying, “We accept reality so readily—perhaps because we sense that nothing is real.” For Borges, life is full of layers, where each answer leads to another question, just like how the speaker feels that everything in their mind is connected to something deeper. Borges’ characters often feel trapped in endless cycles of thought, and this mirrors how the speaker here feels stuck in their own complicated mind.

“I can’t go through the motions”

Here, the speaker admits that they’re struggling to do simple, everyday things. They say, “I can’t go through the motions,” meaning they can’t just live their life like normal anymore. This shows that whatever is going on in their mind is affecting their ability to function. They’re stuck, unsure of how to move forward.

This connects to Samuel Beckett’s characters in Endgame. Beckett often wrote about people who feel like they’re stuck in repetitive cycles, not able to move forward in life. In Endgame, the characters keep doing the same things over and over, even though they know it doesn’t make sense. Beckett’s line, “Nothing is funnier than unhappiness,” shows how his characters feel trapped by their emotions, much like the speaker here feels unable to break free from their own thoughts and routine.

“I am afraid of changing”

This line is pretty straightforward—the speaker admits they’re scared of change. Even though they know they need to rearrange things in their life, they’re terrified of what that might mean. Change is hard for them because it involves letting go of who they are now, even if they’re unhappy.

Rilke talks about this fear of change too. He writes, “For one human being to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks.” In this line, Rilke is saying that real growth and change—especially when it comes to our relationships with ourselves and others—is hard, but it’s necessary. The speaker, much like Rilke’s characters, knows change needs to happen, but they can’t get past the fear.

“There are rings within rings within rings”

This is a key metaphor in the song. The speaker talks about “rings within rings,” suggesting that life feels like a series of endless cycles. They’re stuck in these loops of thought, where every time they think they’ve solved something, they find another layer. The rings show how the speaker feels trapped in their own mind, unable to find a way out.

This connects deeply to Borges’ idea of circularity and infinity. Borges often wrote about life as a labyrinth with no clear way out, and one of his famous lines, “To fall in love is to create a religion that has a fallible god,” reflects this idea of endless complexity. The speaker in the song feels like every thought leads to another thought, much like Borges’ characters who find themselves in never-ending mazes of their own making.

“I got caught compiling my own news”

This lyric suggests that the speaker is trying to make sense of their own life, but they’re getting overwhelmed. They’re “compiling” their own story, trying to organize their thoughts, but they feel stuck and confused. This feels similar to what we see in Beckett’s works, where his characters are always trying to make sense of their situations but end up feeling lost.

The speaker here is trying to figure things out, but every time they do, they just feel more trapped.

Themes And Poetic Throughlines

The themes of self-reflection, fear of change, and the overwhelming complexity of life run deep in Bon Iver’s ““THINGS BEHIND THINGS BEHIND THINGS” lyrics, and they’re ideas that poets like Rainer Maria Rilke, Samuel Beckett, and Jorge Luis Borges have tackled in their own timeless works. In “THINGS BEHIND THINGS BEHIND THINGS””, Justin Vernon touches on these universal struggles, using lyrics like “I see things behind things behind things” to reflect the kind of introspection and self-analysis that many of us experience.

This mirrors Rilke’s exploration of self-discovery in The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge, where he writes about the challenge of facing oneself and the layers of identity that can make that process painful. In both the song and Rilke’s work, there’s this ongoing sense of disillusionment and questioning of who we are beneath the surface.

Fear of change is another major theme in “THINGS BEHIND THINGS BEHIND THINGS”, where Vernon admits, “I am afraid of changing.” This line speaks to the resistance many people feel when confronted with personal growth or transformation, a fear that also shows up in Rilke’s work, where he writes, “For one human being to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks.”

Rilke suggests that true growth, especially emotional growth, is hard and often frightening, just like Vernon grappling with his own need for rearrangement. Vernon’s recent interview with The New Yorker reinforces this idea—he discusses the emotional toll that his music and fame have taken on him, often questioning whether he’s steering his life into cycles of sorrow because that’s what’s expected of him.

Finally, the repetition of “rings within rings” in SABLE, evokes the idea of life’s cyclical nature, reflecting both Beckett’s and Borges’ views on existential complexity. Samuel Beckett, particularly in Endgame, often explored the feeling of being trapped in repetitive patterns, and Borges’ Labyrinths delves into the idea of life as an infinite maze, where every answer reveals more layers of uncertainty. Vernon taps into this same existential frustration, showing how difficult it can be to escape the loops of thought that keep pulling us back in.

His words, combined with the EP’s minimalist structure, suggest that life’s struggles—especially those related to identity and change—aren’t easily solved but must be learned to live with.