Calgary

This first single from indie folk band Bon Iver's eponymous second album was released on May 16, 2011. Most of the tracks are named after places, and this song's title refers to the mid-western Canadian city located in Alberta's grassland region. According to Rolling Stone's Joe Dolan, "Canada's cowboy country is evoked via high-lonesome almost-a cappella singing that fades into rolling tom-toms booming as spaciously as the Great White North."

Unlike For Emma, Forever Ago, Bon Iver wasn't laid down in a backwoods cabin. According to the press release it was "recorded and mixed at April Base Studios, a remodeled veterinarian's clinic located in rural Fall Creek, Wisconsin."

Lyrically, the songs on Bon Iver are more difficult to decipher than those on For Emma. Despite this, Bon Iver founder Justin Vernon told UK newspaper The Guardian he is particularly proud of the development of his lyrical style on the record. "There's a few times in the past when I wrote a song and I put the words together and they were very clear pictures and I felt like I was putting together a really good story," he said. "But I don't think I was ever really able to stay on that. What I've sort of developed lyrically is more about the sound of the vocals and what they are.The lyrics of this record, I got really really really intricate about the meaning, for me," he continued. "I mean [the song] Calgary, I remember working on it every single day for a year on tour. Just looking at it, and almost getting really weird about reading it down vertically. I just wanted it to be complete, because I felt that if it could just stand alone as its own thing, if it looked right, if it was finished and it was sung with feeling, then it doesn't matter to anyone else what I'm singing because it's sounding good and it's delivered well."