A Guided Tour of Backspacer

Dr. Stip Zoidberg

by all means you should defintiely post on any and every song when you have something to add (or challenge). These reviews are fun to do because of the conversation they make possible)

tremors

Dr. Stip Zoidberg wrote:

by all means you should defintiely post on any and every song when you have something to add (or challenge). These reviews are fun to do because of the conversation they make possible)

That sounds good. Good thread! Welcome to the Porch by the way - you're no doubt a regular over at RM...?. good to have a bit of a shakeup! Actually come to think of it I seem to remember some highly intelligent reviews of yours of Avocado on there when I used to go there.... ho hum,...

Dr. Stip Zoidberg

I'm actually the pj chat moderator over at RM. When I've done these in the past I've posted them here when I finished (or someone else would) but it occurred to me that there's no reason not to post these one at a time as I put them up at RM.

tremors

Dr. Stip Zoidberg wrote:

I'm actually the pj chat moderator over at RM. When I've done these in the past I've posted them here when I finished (or someone else would) but it occurred to me that there's no reason not to post these one at a time as I put them up at RM.

Yes when I read back in the thread and you said your 'stip' name it was then I remembered you and your avatar from the simpsons or another cartoon? I got a lot from your interpretation of Avocado as thematically / narratively linked - around war etc - kind of like a concept album - was a bit of a revelation to me!! I don't listen to that record much these days, but I think the live versions from this backspacer tour have been really really strong.

It's good that you are sharing these - nice to read something with substance and depth on the Porch, so thanks!

Dr. Stip Zoidberg

if you like this kind of stuff we have similar write ups for Vitalogy, Ten, Riot Act, and Binaural (written by me), and excellent threads on No Code and a started on on Yield by other posters. There's also the song of the moment discussions.

Dr. Stip Zoidberg

Johnny Guitar

Although it’s another fast moving, high energy song , Johnny Guitar explores a different aspect of Backspacer’s emotional and thematic space. Johnny Guitar celebrates not taking yourself so seriously, and in that respect it’s one of the more mature songs in their catalog—despite , or possibly because of, the juvenile lyrics.

With a handful of exceptions Pearl Jam’s approach to fun could probably best be summed up as FUN=SERIOUS BUSINESS. It’s like they were people who looked the word fun up in the dictionary, were aware of its technical definition, and were going to attempt to reproduce it without actually ever having had experienced it. There were moments in the past that came close. Who You Are becomes a much better song if it’s not meant to be taken so seriously. Black Red Yellow and All Night want to let themselves go, but they can’t quite manage it. It’s like there is a part of themselves that’s watching them, prepared to judge if they enjoy themselves too much . And the No Code attempts were probably the best of the bunch. They’re clearly having a great time with Johnny Guitar, and like a few other places on Backspacer the apparent simplicity in the crude lyrics and the puerile story told can make it easy to miss that the song has something important to say, critical to the overall message of the record.

Although this may not be obvious at first, Johnny Guitar is a companion piece to a song like I Got Shit—the opposite side of the same coin. The subject matter in both songs are the same—the main character’s response to a heart breaking, life shattering, unrequited love. I Got Shit plays it straight (there’s no way Pearl Jam could have played it any other way in 1995, and it’s not a problem that they did. These are emotions and experiences that demand voice), and so we’re left with this devastatingly sad portrait of a wasted, pathetic life thrown away in pursuit of someone who has no idea how this person feels, or even that they exist. It’s a totally emo song in the hands of someone else, but the sincerity of the delivery and the credibility earned from the previous records turn it into something more moving and profound.

Johnny Guitar takes this same set of circumstances and goes in an entirely different direction. It tells the story of a life long obsession about a girl—a fantasy in the most literal sense since she’s not even anyone real. She’s just an image on a poster, and so the subject can basically make her be whatever it is he wants her to be. This guy focuses on her innocence—the fantasy is about all the things he’s going to do to her when he awakens her sexuality—Sleeping Beauty being awoken by her handsome prince but filtered through ZZ Top instead of Disney.

He’s jealous of Johnny Guitar, who possesses the woman (any woman he wants it would seem—this guy is in awe of Johnny’s secret, seemingly forbidden knowledge—the ability to get a girl to sleep with you) and he’s envious of the ease with which he does so, but he has faith that someday she’ll be his. He hopes for the future even as he despairs in a present that extends on for decades. The little details in this song are sharp, like the image in the bridge of the guy sleeping with the lights on. Ostensibly it’s so she can find him (although what kind of fantasy can’t navigate the dark), but it’s probably more that he just falls asleep starring at the poster. And the bridge transitions into his dream (I picture him nodding off to sleep as he extends the second ‘in case she…’ going out of the bridge.

But finally, after thirty years of failing to even dream about this girl (that’s how pathetic this guy is) he has the moment he’s waiting for. Like the subject in I Got Shit the dreams are more real (or more important, anyway) than the reality since this is the one place their love isn’t unrequited. And his moment finally comes—after thirty years of patient devotion he has his reward. She slinks over to the bed in her red dress, leans over…and asks (almost certainly in a husky voice) if he’s seen Johnny Guitar. This guy is such a loser he can’t even win in his dreams.

But what makes the song work is that there’s no judgment here. There’s no warning. Johnny Guitar is not the cautionary tale that I Got Shit is. Instead it’s playful and celebratory, full of double entendres and filthy innuendo delivered in a rapid fire and extremely accomplished vocal melody that doesn’t give us time to take any of this very seriously (and without the awkwardness in a song like soon forget when Eddie trips himself up over the word horny). The faux desperation in Eddie’s voice gives the song a ridiculous sense of self-importance that’s poking fun of itself at the same time.

Musically they set the scene perfectly, with the muscular swagger of the guitar the soundtrack for how this guy no doubt WANTS to see himself. If the mournful guitars in I Got Shit sound like a heart breaking here we have the sound of guy trying frantically to strut since that seems to be what gets Johnny Guitar his ladies. The filthy guitar in the bridge encapsulates this best, but it’s present throughout the whole song.

Pearl Jam often ends their emotionally intense songs with a cathartic breakdown, and like everything else in this song Johnny Guitar ends by spoofing this tendency within their music. The singer is trying to stay strong “I hide my disappointment” but he can’t quite manage it and loses it at the end. But the music can’t keep a straight face and instead of suffering with him it affectionately cheers on this pathetic loser and his hopeless fantasy.

The song is ridiculous (or as ridiculous as Pearl Jam can ever really get) and that is in part the point. It celebrates our silly dreams and recognizes that a life without play, without nonsensical ambitions, one that cannot laugh at itself and its occasional ridiculousness, is not a life that’s really worth living. One of the key milestones in really growing up, really maturing, is learning how to be able to take life seriously and laugh at yourself at the same time. Pearl Jam knew how to take life seriously from the very beginning. It’s nice to see them get comfortable enough in their own skin that they’re able to laugh too.

tremors

Another great write up! Particularly enjoyed the second paragraph!

Overall your review made me think a lot of 'Pictures of Lily' by the who - a similar obsession by a youngster with a distant female in the pages of a (gentleman's!) magazine! It has a similar obvious comic yearning, and a lot of inuendo.

I used to wake up in the morning
I used to feel so bad
I got so sick of having sleepless nights
I went and told my dad

He said, "Son now here's some little something"
And stuck them on my wall
And now my nights ain't quite so lonely
In fact I, I don't feel bad at all

Pictures of Lily made my life so wonderful
Pictures of Lily helped me sleep at night
Pitcures of Lily solved my childhood problems
Pictures of Lily helped me feel alright

And then one day things weren't quite so fine
I fell in love with Lily
I asked my dad where Lily I could find
He said, "Son, now don't be silly"

"She's been dead since 1929"
Oh, how I cried that night
If only I'd been born in Lily's time
It would have been alright

The main way I think Johnny Guitar differs from Pictures of Lily however, for me at least - is that alongside the humour I have always found a slightly 'sinister' edge to the song and the vocals- where smut starts to get seedy, and worse. Maybe for me it resides in the 'Johnny Guitar' figure himself - who the hell is this guy? It seems to me that Backspacer is the first Pearl Jam record which is aware of the Internet - and the changed world in which we live in. If Pictures of Lily was a song about 1940s / 1960s soft porn - then maybe the 'edge' I hear in Johnny Guitar comes with this awareness of a very changed set of times..... The song and the title evoke a bygone age - but the rest of the album is painfully aware of the current era - even if it tries to keep it at bay. So for me the song also contains an edge where the naivety and playfulness of a song like Pictures of Lily is just not tenable in the current age. I couldn't quite pinpoint where this sinister edge creeps in - but I have always heard beneath the playfulness an edge of disgust - maybe as you say both in the 'patheticness' of the narrator - but maybe towards this Johnny Guitar figure who is 'having all the women' too. Again I can't say exactly why but I've sometimes thought Johnny Guitar is a pornographer - and actually just looking at the booklet now it is obvious from Tom Tomorrow's prints that the man riding on 3 wheels is a kind of 'comic book' 1970s pimp..... so that must be partly where I have got this from. I think the playfulness maybe comes with Ed tackling a very serious subject for the first time ........ pornography??

Good Work again Stip.....

Dr. Stip Zoidberg

this is a bit of band trivia I actually happen to know


Johnny guitar Watson is a blues guitarist. This is an actual person. The poster he's describing (that tom tomorrow reproduces on the album cover) is the actual cover to one of his records. I've seen a picture of it before, and a minute or two of searching could find it.

I don't know The Who that well but it's pretty likely that at least parts of this song are influenced by Pictures of Lily. Good call.

TJ25487

I have never heard Pictures of Lily but after reading the lyrics Johnny Guitar sounds very similar in structure. Good comparison there.

JonnyPistachio

I concur.
Good stuff Doctor!

Deep In The Ocean

Great review !!!

I concur with you in 90 % and that´s a lot for a PJ album review haha. Backspacer is in my PJ podium since the first listen because since I was 15 or 16 years I see the life in a very very close way to the Backspacer´s "philosophy", and I love to be alive and I try to enjoy every single moment of my life because I know that the time flies, and soon the lights must be turned off...but before THAT we have an entire life to enjoy and celebrate the gift of be alive and to share our love with the world, and Backspacer reflects that way to see the life, that feeling of be a lucky guy to be part of this beautifull world and I don´t know what you think people but I´m very happy for be part of all this.

ENJOY THE LIFE !!!


P.D: Can´t wait to the Just Breathe - Amongst The Waves - Unthought Known review !!!!!

tremors

TJ25487 wrote:

I have never heard Pictures of Lily but after reading the lyrics Johnny Guitar sounds very similar in structure. Good comparison there.

Thanks both.

I wrote that a bit bleary eyed this morning before leaving for work, after reading Stip's post, and was a bit worried I would get it in the neck for my unusual angles - glad you were receptive!

Actually, I remember hearing a lot of Pictures of Lily parallels when I first heard Johnny Guitar, but they have been fading... when I read Stip's post I thought it could almost be a review of the Who song in a way - so got me thinking again....

What is quite interesting about the Pictures of Lily parallel in light of Stip's review is the attitude we have to the narrator of the song I think. Pictures of Lily is a pretty unique song and caused a bit of a stir at the time - but not too much, because I think it is impossible to feel anything other than affection and sympathy for the narrator, and his familiar plight of youthful sleepless adolescent nights, helped on by a bit of 'admiration' of Lily! it is a very disarming song, very witty and beautifully constructed. I think you could go on to contrast this quite effectively and usefully with the narrator of Johnny Guitar as described by the doctor, and found in the verses. I still think there is an 'edge' to the 2009 song which is entirely absent in the 1960s song.... the innocence is replaced with a more troubled and troubling desperation, despite the humour - and I hear this come through in Ed's voice. Also the narrator in Johnny is fixed as much if not more so on the man at the centre, rather than the girl on the left..... I won't expand on this point too much here! but it is a very different view, a very different viewer.

Thanks for the info on the actual Johnny Guitar - I didn't know about that or the album cover link. I was thinking today though a bit more about this 'yearning' (for a bygone era?) in some of backspacer - the looking back - the retro graphics, particularly in that picture - I was also thinking more about the album title - a computer reference? - but maybe also a plea - a plea for a few steps back (from a brink?)- a plea or a desire / intent to 'undo' .... hmmm not sure on this one. Will have a ponder....

Dr. Stip Zoidberg

Just Breathe

Yes yes yes, Just Breathe sounds like it was written for Into The Wild. That doesn’t matter. Musically it takes the ideas in Tuolumne (which was a very pretty little instrumental that I really wanted to see developed further) and turns it into a full fledged song. If not for the fact that Into The Wild really has no space for a love song in it this would have fit in there perfectly. But it fits in here too. Not counting a song like You this is really the first pure love song pearl jam ever wrote ( I went with an REM song when I got married just because Pearl Jam didn’t have anything I could use yet. If only I had waited 4 more years). This is probably not a song Pearl Jam could have written prior to Backspacer. There’s a sense of spiritual calm, certainty, and stability to it that reflects the peace of mind that comes from a long standing, healthy relationship—the realization that love is as much the small quiet moments as it is white hot fire, and that while it’s easy to miss those moments, when we stop and notice them they take our breath away.

Musically this song almost immediately relaxes me, transports me someplace quiet and secure, the gentle finger picking moving me along without actually taking me anywhere—it’s a pretty cool combination of movement and standing still—and the organ accents color this beautifully. The do a great job phasing in the rest of the band here—the bass comes in as Eddie turns to weightier thoughts, as he starts to reflect on the moment, rather than live in the moment itself. It gives his meditation here a bit of urgency without overpowering the song.

At least until the chorus. I’m not sure what to make of it. It might have been necessary to really have the chorus differentiate itself from the verses, and certainly there’s a pleading element to the vocals that requires the music to hit a little harder, but the transition here is a bit too jarring. It’s like going from sometimes into hail hail (well not that bad, but on the same scale) and it’s too much. I think my problem here may just be the volume. The strings are perhaps a little melodramatic, but its’ also a melodramatic moment and there’s nothing necessarily wrong with melodrama used sparingly.

The transition out of the first chorus (vocally and musically) is excellent, and the music reflects the weightier thoughts without really overdoing it. It’s much busier than the first verse, but the chorus does prepare us for this. The second chorus is still a little jarring but it’s not as bad as the first time, and the song swirls away underneath eddie’s vocalizations and final thoughts. It’s impressive how this song manages to sound so busy and so simple and delicate at the same time. R.E.M. could write a song like this in their sleep. It’s nice to see Pearl Jam take a stab at it and be so successful.

Eddie is surprisingly nasally on this song. He doesn’t sound like this on the rest of the album, so it’s clearly an artistic choice. I’m not sure why he made it. He’s going for delicate and vulnerable, but he’s done that better before (see Into the Wild, for instance), and they make the aw huh’s at the end of the line too prominent—those are meant as punctuation and they turn into statements. These are certainly not my favorite vocals of his, but again another accomplished vocal melody, the way the words just glide so effortlessly over the music, goes a long way towards cutting the impact of the vocal choice. Plus his voice is full of the nooks and crannies , the cracks and the warmth, so that the overall effect is still compelling.

Lyrically this one is going to rise and fall on the sincerity. If you believe him it’s compelling. As stand alone lyrics divorced from the performance they’re not bad, but they’re not great. Other than ‘I’m a lucky man to count on both hands the ones I love’ which I think is just a gorgeous lyric there’s nothing too memorable here. But the approach he’s taking to love is interesting. Like I mentioned earlier this is a mature love song—mature in that it’s speaking to a love that’s long past the initial stage of discovery where everything is white hot and exciting and new. It’s writing from the perspective of a love that, while cooling (as it inevitably will), has plugged all the cracks and settled in the foundations of these people’s lives—the way in which it becomes impossible to live without even as you cease noticing it all the time.

Just Breathe is a quiet moment of reflection—the singer is taking the time to remember, to consciously remind himself, just how fortunate he is to have the gifts he has, and how empty he would be without them. There’s a maturity to this song, a sense of peace, a willingness (a need even) to live in a moment outside of time which isn’t possible until we become comfortable enough with ourselves and the world around us to realize that there are times it is okay to just shut it out and exist for ourselves—that it is within these spaces we find the strength and purpose to fight again. The fact that this moment is shared is also significant. It speaks to the self confidence needed to leave oneself so vulnerable, so dependent on someone else. There are undercurrents of death in this song (every life must end, hold me ‘til I die) but I doubt very much either character is dying. Instead the references to dying and to departures are a reflection of how utterly dependent the main character is on the other person in his life, how lucky he is to have it, and a promise to himself to remember that this cannot last forever and so he must not take it for granted. It’s clear that the person he’s signing to is his rock, his refuge and certainty in a violent and uncertain world, and that this is the most precious thing she can be for him. And so the most romantic line in the whole piece may be the ‘stay with me, let’s just breathe.’ There may not be a purer expression of love than the desire for that person to just be there, to demand nothing more of them other than that they exist.

Deep In The Ocean

Dr. Stip Zoidberg wrote:

Just Breathe

Yes yes yes, Just Breathe sounds like it was written for Into The Wild. That doesn’t matter. Musically it takes the ideas in Tuolumne (which was a very pretty little instrumental that I really wanted to see developed further) and turns it into a full fledged song. If not for the fact that Into The Wild really has no space for a love song in it this would have fit in there perfectly. But it fits in here too. Not counting a song like You this is really the first pure love song pearl jam ever wrote ( I went with an REM song when I got married just because Pearl Jam didn’t have anything I could use yet. If only I had waited 4 more years). This is probably not a song Pearl Jam could have written prior to Backspacer. There’s a sense of spiritual calm, certainty, and stability to it that reflects the peace of mind that comes from a long standing, healthy relationship—the realization that love is as much the small quiet moments as it is white hot fire, and that while it’s easy to miss those moments, when we stop and notice them they take our breath away.

Musically this song almost immediately relaxes me, transports me someplace quiet and secure, the gentle finger picking moving me along without actually taking me anywhere—it’s a pretty cool combination of movement and standing still—and the organ accents color this beautifully. The do a great job phasing in the rest of the band here—the bass comes in as Eddie turns to weightier thoughts, as he starts to reflect on the moment, rather than live in the moment itself. It gives his meditation here a bit of urgency without overpowering the song.

At least until the chorus. I’m not sure what to make of it. It might have been necessary to really have the chorus differentiate itself from the verses, and certainly there’s a pleading element to the vocals that requires the music to hit a little harder, but the transition here is a bit too jarring. It’s like going from sometimes into hail hail (well not that bad, but on the same scale) and it’s too much. I think my problem here may just be the volume. The strings are perhaps a little melodramatic, but its’ also a melodramatic moment and there’s nothing necessarily wrong with melodrama used sparingly.

The transition out of the first chorus (vocally and musically) is excellent, and the music reflects the weightier thoughts without really overdoing it. It’s much busier than the first verse, but the chorus does prepare us for this. The second chorus is still a little jarring but it’s not as bad as the first time, and the song swirls away underneath eddie’s vocalizations and final thoughts. It’s impressive how this song manages to sound so busy and so simple and delicate at the same time. R.E.M. could write a song like this in their sleep. It’s nice to see Pearl Jam take a stab at it and be so successful.

Eddie is surprisingly nasally on this song. He doesn’t sound like this on the rest of the album, so it’s clearly an artistic choice. I’m not sure why he made it. He’s going for delicate and vulnerable, but he’s done that better before (see Into the Wild, for instance), and they make the aw huh’s at the end of the line too prominent—those are meant as punctuation and they turn into statements. These are certainly not my favorite vocals of his, but again another accomplished vocal melody, the way the words just glide so effortlessly over the music, goes a long way towards cutting the impact of the vocal choice. Plus his voice is full of the nooks and crannies , the cracks and the warmth, so that the overall effect is still compelling.

Lyrically this one is going to rise and fall on the sincerity. If you believe him it’s compelling. As stand alone lyrics divorced from the performance they’re not bad, but they’re not great. Other than ‘I’m a lucky man to count on both hands the ones I love’ which I think is just a gorgeous lyric there’s nothing too memorable here. But the approach he’s taking to love is interesting. Like I mentioned earlier this is a mature love song—mature in that it’s speaking to a love that’s long past the initial stage of discovery where everything is white hot and exciting and new. It’s writing from the perspective of a love that, while cooling (as it inevitably will), has plugged all the cracks and settled in the foundations of these people’s lives—the way in which it becomes impossible to live without even as you cease noticing it all the time.

Just Breathe is a quiet moment of reflection—the singer is taking the time to remember, to consciously remind himself, just how fortunate he is to have the gifts he has, and how empty he would be without them. There’s a maturity to this song, a sense of peace, a willingness (a need even) to live in a moment outside of time which isn’t possible until we become comfortable enough with ourselves and the world around us to realize that there are times it is okay to just shut it out and exist for ourselves—that it is within these spaces we find the strength and purpose to fight again. The fact that this moment is shared is also significant. It speaks to the self confidence needed to leave oneself so vulnerable, so dependent on someone else. There are undercurrents of death in this song (every life must end, hold me ‘til I die) but I doubt very much either character is dying. Instead the references to dying and to departures are a reflection of how utterly dependent the main character is on the other person in his life, how lucky he is to have it, and a promise to himself to remember that this cannot last forever and so he must not take it for granted. It’s clear that the person he’s signing to is his rock, his refuge and certainty in a violent and uncertain world, and that this is the most precious thing she can be for him. And so the most romantic line in the whole piece may be the ‘stay with me, let’s just breathe.’ There may not be a purer expression of love than the desire for that person to just be there, to demand nothing more of them other than that they exist.

Good job doc!

tremors

Fine writing!! great review which had me hearing the spirit of the song in your words - nothing more to add

OffHeGoes132

Excellent work! A very enjoyable read!

TJ25487

Bravo Doctor!

Dr. Stip Zoidberg

Amongst the Waves

Amongst the Waves is one of the centerpiece tracks on Backspacer (I’d say alongside The Fixer and Unthought Known). This is not to say that these are the best songs on Backspacer (I certainly do not think so) but they make the most important statements on the record. They anchor the themes, in the same way that Corduroy and Given To Fly anchor Vitalogy and Yield. So it’s really important that they get these songs right. I think they’re successful (not perfect, but successful) on Unthought Known and The Fixer, but after a very promising start they come up a little short on Amongst the Waves—one of the few moments where I think Backspacer stumbles a bit.

I keep referencing Yield in this review, and that’s not surprising, since Backspacer reprises and develops more fully the potential and promise of Yield, promises that get cut off on the record itself and then come to a full stop on Binaural (I’m talking thematically here, not necessarily in terms of the quality of the songs themselves—I prefer Backspacer to those two records but that’s just a subjective preference). And so, with that preface, Amongst the Waves strikes me as the song (again thematically) that In Hiding wanted to be. Musically the songs sound somewhat similar to me (although In Hiding is structured better, with the crucial pre-chorus that Amongst the Waves needs—more on that below). Both are songs about personal salvation, with the crucial difference being that in In Hiding the singer can save himself only by retreating into himself, by admitting defeat. It’s a song about isolation, about being unable to deal with the world. It’s implied towards the end that through this retreat he is able to resurrect himself, but then the song goes right back into celebrating the fact that he’s in hiding. As we’ll see Amongst the Waves is also about salvation, but absent the moment of retreat. It may not be the better song (I like them about the same), but it’s more consistent with the core of who the band is and what it stands for. Amongst the Waves is the song Pearl Jam wanted In Hiding to be, and it celebrates the fact that they’re finally able to write it.


Amongst the Waves accomplishes a great deal during its verses. Musically it sets the scene perfectly. The gentle buzzing and quiet electricity of the melody, the bright coloration, the deep bass and gentle drumming all create the image of a man overlooking a dark lake at midnight with the slight wind rippling the water (I hear a lake more than an ocean, but I’m more drawn to lakes than oceans). It’s a perfect backdrop for peaceful reflection, for feeling grateful about the life you’ve fought for and the fact that you can share it (and the opportunity to share it may be instrumental in the creation). The music sounds like a living memory, like past and present coming together and lifting you up in the process.

Lyrically I’m a big fan of each verse, and each compliments the music well. In the first he’s clearly signing to someone else. It makes sense to assume it’s the person in Just Breathe, given the placement on the record and the same lyrical themes, the way in which love and commitment has finally granted him the peace (just you and me and nothing more) and stability he’s spent so long desperately trying to achieve (what used to be a house of cards has turned into a reservoir—a lyric that would be clunky if not so expertly delivered—as is the case on pretty much all of the record Eddie is masterful here). The quiet moonlit night overlooking the water is a gift, and he’s giving thanks for it. Having struggled so long for it he’s well aware of its valued. His is a peace earned through struggle and resistance and achieved ultimately through surrender, but by surrendering to someone else, not the world. Freedom and love are found through dictating the terms of your submission. This was the promise at the end of Faithful, the hope of Given to Fly, lost during In Hiding, finally achieved AND sustained.

In that sense the second verse is a flashback—rather than addressing his partner in the first verse he’s addressing himself, his past, his struggle, and while the flashback may make more sense for a reflective song, I wonder if having this verse come first—giving the song a narrative arc—would have made more sense, especially given some of the concerns I have with the bridge and chorus (more on that later). I like the loss of innocence in nameless violence described in the second verse. It’s possible there is a statement to be teased out of the television reference, but it does feel a little out of place. This isn’t Ghost, and this song is too internal to really make room for social critique (TV as hyper reality, TV as a filter to block out reality, etc—lots of things you can do here, but not necessary for the song). I like that he sticks with the blood metaphor (cut to later/bled yourself) and the way the verse conveys that sense of being the last man standing after a long and grueling struggle, having found the strength needed to endure and even triumph over constant struggle (this also makes me wonder if Force of Nature, which chronicles this struggle without a resolution, should switch places with Amongst the Waves).

It’s the chorus where Amongst the Waves loses me. Lyrically it’s fine. Waves and water are Eddie’s go to lyrical inspiration, and it’s been done before, but I have no problem with the usage here. I’ve never surfed, but the sense of release and freedom and possibility and salvation found in that moment is clearly conveyed. The “gotta say it now, better loud than too late” lyric is interesting to, especially the way he unexpectedly juxtaposes loud with late—the recognition that life is not only about seizing the necessary moments, but doing so with a full bodied and totalizing commitment, holding nothing back, surrendering to that moment.

Convey this asks more of the music and the delivery than the song gives. The chorus doesn’t provide the exclamation mark it needs to. The delivery sounds more like a pre chorus—like Eddie’s ramping up for a pay off that never actually happens. In Hiding is a good parallel to draw here—you can’t go from the verses to the ‘I’m in hiding’ chorus without the pre chorus, but the pre chorus itself would not have been sufficient without the release. Maybe if they repeated or developed further the ‘gotta say it now’ part of the song (like they do at the end of the song) that would have helped. But even there Eddie needs to push more. His brilliant performance in Hard Sun makes moments like this fall flat. He can clearly still hit those notes and he’s not. At his best no one soars quite like Eddie, and this song needs to soar here (this kills Love Boat Captain as well). It rides its waves, but it doesn’t rise above them. The music doesn’t pick up the slack here either—it carries Eddie along but doesn’t lift him up. I like the atmosphere in the music, stormy and purifying at the same time, but it’s not enough. It’s possible that too stark a difference between chorus and verse would have sounded out of place, but if that’s the case the song really needs that transitional pre chorus that it lacks. Given to Fly has it. In Hiding has it. Amongst the Waves needs it. There’s a little more energy for the second and even for the third and final chorus—more is at stake each time, but it’s never enough. Even the final chorus has a certain sameness to it—a song about surviving, triumph, and salvation needs to ascend in its final moments, and Amongst the Waves doesn’t.

Backspacer is a record largely devoid of Mike solos, which for me are almost always a highlight of any song that features one. It’s nice to hear one on Amongst the Waves, and it’s pretty good (not great, but pretty good) as far as solos go, but it feels out of place. Some of this is the way the song is structured. It’s a flashback solo—it’s the musical accompaniment for the actual events that Eddie remembers in the second verse, but with a chorus between the two of them it’s easy to forget why it’s happening. Sandwiched between the two choruses it lacks context. A few bridge lyrics to transition into it would have helped. Stronger choruses (musically and vocally) might have helped the solo seem less out of place by providing the struggle with more of a payoff than Mikes gives the solo itself. Someone who can write such cathartic pieces like Alive and I Am Mine (or even the outro of Force of Nature, which pulls off what Amongst the Waves fails to fully do) can do better here. It’s a shame that after the vocals and music compliment each other so well on the verses they each fail to come through for the other when they need it.

And so in the end Amongst the Waves fails to sustain the incredible energy and first rate run of songs that precedes it. The momentum falters here. Unthought Known picks it back up but now we’re starting over, and the record never quite fully recovers since there isn’t enough time to rebuild the lost momentum. Tracklisting could have helped here. You don’t necessarily want to have all your fast songs and then all your slow songs but moving Amongst the Waves to later in the record (which is more reflective and less immediate than the first half enables you to go from Just Breathe to Unthought Known, which is a better musical transition and fits in better with the immediacy of the first half of the record (Just Breathe makes a bit more sense later but you usually don’t want to stick all your slow songs next to each other). Amongst the Waves would be better served following Force of Nature towards the end. There are other songs I’d move around (it’s always fun to play the retracking game) but this is the placement I have the most trouble with.

This is a pretty unsatisfying way to end this review, but I suppose it’s appropriate given that Amongst the Waves ends up being something of an unsatisfying song.

Dr. Stip Zoidberg

man, stuff drops off the main page here pretty quickly

UpSideDown

Dr. Stip Zoidberg wrote:

man, stuff drops off the main page here pretty quickly

bumpity

Solid, detailed reviews for sure. I'm willing to bet the band hasn't even thought this hard about some of their songs.