Alive has sexual mother/son undertones?

CG49089

I was checking out the wikipedia entry on PJ and it discusses the song Alive as being a semi autobiographical song about Ed's life... involving a mother who makes sexual advances on her son, who resembles the deceased father.

Anybody think there is legitimacy to this? I always kinda thought it seemed to imply a bit of sexuality... but wasn't sure what to make of it I guess.

Figured I would take it to the experts...

"Oh, she walks slowly,
Across a young man's room
She said I'm ready... for you
Whiii can't remember...
Anything to this very day...
'Cept the look... the look...
Oh, you know where...
Now, I can't see... I just stare"

vedderfan10

Duh....

I think if you find a Rolling Stone article from 1993/94, he explains it there....but he makes it clear he did not experience the incest himself...

Penguin1203

as unreliable as this sounds, Wikipedia makes this fact obvious, and also explains that Vedder included those lines for a story line, which consists of Alive, Once, and Footsteps. all being about a killer.


although, this is wikipedia, so i may be wrong. very very wrong.

dimitrispearljam

is that look that he gives between her legs couse he feels a curse that he was born

mrshock13

dimitrispearljam wrote:

is that look that he gives between her legs couse he feels a curse that he was born

Yeah, pretty much, along with contemplating the action of what is going on (the incest). In the Pearl Jam storytellers, Ed tells a story about this, and how when he wrote the song, the lyrics "I'm still Alive" was meant to be conveyed as a boon and a curse, rather than the interpretation we all have now, that "I'm still Alive" in a positive light, in the sense that we've made it through all this hard stuff and we lasted, and are still alive. If you look at the lyrics going from Alive to Once to Footsteps, the story is pretty fascinating, I really like it. The young man blames his mother and what she did, and as a consequence, he takes his anger and channels it into destructive acts, and finally is on death row saying his last words about the issue.

dimitrispearljam

mrshock13 wrote:

dimitrispearljam wrote:

is that look that he gives between her legs couse he feels a curse that he was born

Yeah, pretty much, along with contemplating the action of what is going on (the incest). In the Pearl Jam storytellers, Ed tells a story about this, and how when he wrote the song, the lyrics "I'm still Alive" was meant to be conveyed as a boon and a curse, rather than the interpretation we all have now, that "I'm still Alive" in a positive light, in the sense that we've made it through all this hard stuff and we lasted, and are still alive. If you look at the lyrics going from Alive to Once to Footsteps, the story is pretty fascinating, I really like it. The young man blames his mother and what she did, and as a consequence, he takes his anger and channels it into destructive acts, and finally is on death row saying his last words about the issue.

cant say it better..

emdub950

"Except the loooook...... the looooook, you know where, now I can't see, I just staaaaare" kinda sums it up as well.

dimitrispearljam

emdub950 wrote:

"Except the loooook...... the looooook, you know where, now I can't see, I just staaaaare" kinda sums it up as well.

Purlyjem

There are some live recordings from around 1991, 1992, where Eddie can be heard singing these lines:

"Except the loooook...... the looooook, between her legs, I just staaaaare"

And another version of Alive, where he sings

"she says I'm ready...to fuck you.."

So yeah... I'd say there are some references to sexual content in the song..

mookiemoochie16

This is the quote from the October 28, 1993 Rolling Stone where Eddie talks about Alive. I dug out my magazine just for you. :]

"Everybody writes about it like it's a life affirmation thing--I'm really glad about that," he says with a resentful laugh. "It's a great interpretation. But 'Alive' is...it's torture. Which is why it's fucked up for me. Why I should probably learn to sing it another way. It would be easier. It's...it's too much.

"The story of the song is that a mother is with a father, and the father dies. It's an intense thing because the son looks just like the father. The son grows up to be the father, the person that she lost. His father's dead, and now this confusion, his mother, his love, how does he love her, how does she love him? In fact, the mother, even though she marries somebody else, there's no one she's ever loved more than the father. You know how it is, first loves and stuff. And the guy dies. How could you ever get him back? But the son. He looks exactly like him. It's uncanny. So she wants him. The son is oblivious to it all. He doesn't know what the fuck is going on. He's still dealing, he's still growing up. He's still dealing with love, he's still dealing with the death of his father. All he knows is 'I'm still alive'--those three words, that's totally out of burden.

"Now the second verse is 'Oh, she walks slowly across a young man's room, I can remember to this very day, the look, the look.' And I don't say anything else. And because I'm saying, 'the look, the look,' everyone thinks it goes with 'on her face'. It's not on her face. The look is between her legs. Where do you go with that? That's where you came from.

"But 'I'm still alive'. I'm the lover that's still alive. And the whole conversation about 'You're still alive, she said.' And his doubts, 'Do I deserve to be? Is that the question?' Because he's fucked up forever! So now he doesn't know how to deal with it, so what does he do, he goes out killing people--that was the song 'Once'. He becomes a serial killer. And 'Footsteps', the final song of the trilogy, that's when he gets executed. That's what happens. The Green River Killer--and in San Diego, there was another prostitute killer down there. Somehow I related to that. I think that happens more than we know. It's a modern way of dealing with a bad life."

Then he smiles as he says, "I'm just glad I became a songwriter."

Stonerlady

I always thought it was kind of another part of his life. First verse: The stuff about his dad (which according to some sources is really true - correct me if I'm wrong); second verse: his first sex. Well, that's what I felt it's all about. Just a few parts of his life - not sticking together.

Jo

Is the stare from the Son, about looking at the cieling whilst being in an awkward posistion?

verbtotrust4130

I read somewhere that Eddie's mom would always give him a stare and he wondered what it was. He realized, after he found out about his father not being who he thought he was, that his mom had always stared at him like that because it amazed her how much he looked like his real father. Something to that effect.