Songfacts®:

• One of the earliest Bon Iver songs, "Flume" is very tender and emotive, typical of their sound from this era. At this point the group was really the solo project of Justin Vernon, who has always been careful to let the listener decide what his songs mean. He explained to NPR: "There's things that happen in the song that I can go to and be in. It can sort of be changing every night. I think I got really into that thought that a song could change and breathe and bleed."
• Bon Iver (Justin Vernon) believes the certain instruments contain songs. "Flume" he found in a Silvertone acoustic guitar he bought on eBay for $179. The day he got it, he wrote the song on it; he kept the guitar, but felt it was out of songs.
• Justin Vernon was living in Raleigh, North Carolina, where he was in a band called DeYarmond Edison, when he wrote this song. He says it took him about four hours to write and record, and was the catalyst for his move to Wisconsin, where he started recording as Bon Iver. The song gave him musical direction for the For Emma, Forever Ago album, which he recorded in a similar bare-bones fashion.
• The For Emma, Forever Ago album was principally self-recorded by Justin Vernon during a three-month retreat alone in a log cabin in northeast Wisconsin, living off the land, splitting wood, and hunting for food. On this track and "For Emma," other instruments were later added in a studio. In the instance of "Flume," Christy Smith of the band Nola added drums and a layered flute.
  
  Vernon released the album on his own in 2007, and when it got attention on prominent music blogs, he signed to a small label called Jagjaguwar Records, which gave it a proper release in 2008.