“Beth/Rest” by Bon Iver

"Beth/Rest" closes the band's 2011 album Bon Iver, Bon Iver, and it's the song that split the room. Justin Vernon wrote, produced and sang it, and built most of its sound on a Korg M1 synthesizer, with Greg Leisz on pedal steel and Colin Stetson and Michael Lewis on saxophone. Vernon has called it the track he's proudest of on the record, a hopeful song about true love and the sense that nothing will ever mean as much again, and said no song had ever taken so much out of him to write.

Critics couldn't agree: NPR's Stephen Thompson called it the year's most divisive song, while Billboard's Jillian Mapes counted it among 2011's best. It went out as the album's fourth and final single, and Bon Iver played it on Saturday Night Live in February 2012.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.