Michicant

Album: Bon Iver (2011)
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Songfacts®:

  • This reflective tune finds Bon Iver frontman Justin Vernon contemplating young love and a loss of innocence. "I was unafraid, I was a boy, I was a tender age," he croons in his trademark falsetto.
  • Bon Iver consists of 10 songs, each of them named after or describing a place. Vernon has said in interviews that not all of the places are geographical locations so much as sentiments or states of being. We cannot find any place named Michicant in the Songfacts gazetteer so maybe it's a play on words of 'Michigan' as in 'Michican't'?
  • Vernon explained the song's meaning to Qmagazine: "It's about the things you can't do any more. So if you do you'll be sent to West Michigan for ever." (In other words - Hell).

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