Yes, I think there are loads and loads of lines in Backspacer which call up echoes of the previous songs, previous lyrics. More so than any other album so far. I think backspacer is a kind of 'watershed' moment in the band's catalogue for this reason - pulling together all the different strands into one condensed and optimistic package- amongst the waves backed with 'the end' - there are a lot of songs about appreciating where we've got to, putting down the load for a while, and hoping this optimism will be enough to carry us through to the 'unknown future'.....
Some of the songs I think are called up by backspacer include Can't Keep, Release (speed of sound), Oceans, Rival even... the lyrics draw on a lot of themes and images from across the catalogue imho
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I certainly see it as reflective rather than going back to the well, would be interesting to see how Backspacer ties in with their back catalogue - if only I had the time...
I found myself yesterday in the unenviable position of a four hour train journey with no iPod, so had a read through the Vitalogy and No Code via my phone. I wouldn't normally engage in others thoughts on Pearl Jam's lyrics, not because I'm deliberately closed minded, but these albums have had a long time to stew in my head with each song have a very strong flavour that I go back for over and over again. I get a thrill out of the way a line is broken up in Red Mosquito to tease out the payment of presents the devil is tempting the narrator with. The hidden double meaning. The secret tastes behind what is being presented. Discovering the magic for yourself is powerful and intoxicating. That said I also found the write up of Sometimes to be an interesting and revealing examination of a song I'd clearly been swallowing whole in the past insted of savouring. Thanks for the inspiration, will be reading more of your stuff man!
I didn't write the No Code tour (or the aborted Yield one) but it is really good. I got a lot out of it. No Code is probably the Pearl Jam record I like the least (I like them all, and love most, but No Code is towards the bottom) but I learned a lot from Frank's thread and it gave me a lot to chew on.
Since there’s no real narrative to Backspacer we can’t really say our journey ends with The End. It’s more appropriate to say that The End marks the conclusion of an exploration—an investigation into a state of mind. The whole record reflects the culmination of two decades of confrontation, reflection, retreat, and growth, and celebrates the hard won sense of peace, acceptance, commitment and meaning. Parts of Backspacer celebrate the immediacy of now, while others remind us that its sense of perfect freedom is somewhat meaningless in a vacuum—that without context (a sense of how the current moment is earned through past struggles), and without other people to share it with we cannot appreciate, take for granted, and are likely to lose, what we’ve worked so long and hard to achieve. Parts of Backspacer ask us to occasionally surrender to guilty pleasures, silly dreams, and an enchanted world, while other parts of the record remind us that anything worth having requires struggle, commitment, and sacrifice. While the record explores this moment in its totality, it is worth paying close attention to Backspacer’s final message. Pearl Jam chooses their final tracks very deliberately. They almost always encapsulate, if not the theme of the album, then the take away lesson they think is most important. These are not always the albums best song, but they are almost always among the most important. So what does The End ask us to take away from Backspacer?
Musically it is at once the simplest song on the record, and at the same time one of the most beautiful Pearl Jam has ever recorded, with a significant portion of its beauty deriving from its simplicity. Eddie has gotten really good at these graceful finger picking melodies. Unlike Guaranteed or Just Breathe, this one, for all the subtle movement, feels heavy, like it’s carrying the weight of history—but the weight is intimated. It’s implied, rather than forced upon us. It gives The End an understated quality that enables Eddie’s emotive performance (and the strings) to avoid descending into melodrama.
The orchestration does a wonderfully unobtrusive job filling the empty spaces in the song, providing the background images and coloration that makes The End feel like a life lived, not lived in. Each note evokes an image, reminds us of a moment, and encourages us to slide our own memory into that space, to make this the story of our life. There’s some urgency in the music, especially as the song peaks, but there is rarely sadness in the music itself. The bittersweet feel of the song comes from Eddie, not the music. The music is a quiet celebration of a life that, against long odds, found serenity and joy. It is the sound of salvation.
This is probably Eddie’s finest vocal performance on the record, and one of his best to date. It is also noteworthy that this is the case in spite of (or better, because of) the decline in the power of his voice. There’s vulnerability (‘I just want to hold on and know I’m worth your love’/’looking out from inside the bottom of a well’), defiance (‘slide on next to me’) , and empathy, like there’s always been, but it sounds lived in, rich with the quiet wisdom of experience, and the delicate vulnerability and subtle strength of age rather than the raw elemental power of his youth. I’m not sure there’s another Pearl Jam song where Eddie is as invested in every word as he is here. Eddie has always been good at sounding exposed, but there was usually a part of him that pushed back against that exposure—almost like it was involuntary. Here we have the sound of someone who, rather than fight it, hopes to open himself up to that exposure, and learn something from it. So what does he learn?
Lyrically The End is a well written enough, although the power of the song comes from the fusion of delivery, music, and history—the performance and the context—more than the actual words themselves. But, since this is a song, the performance matters, and Eddie makes this convincing.
As I said earlier, The End is not a sad song. At worst it is bittersweet. It is tinged with fear and regret, but it is the fear and regret that comes from finally winning something priceless and realizing that no matter what you do, and no matter how badly you want it, you’re going to lose it. Backspacer celebrates now, but now cannot last forever. Other songs explore how important it is to understand the struggles that led to this moment, so that we can preserve and recreate it. But The End implores us (as does, in its own way, Just Breathe) to recognize how fragile and fleeting this moment is, and so we need to embrace it while we can.
There is a slightly haunted quality to The End, but it approaches this emotion from a different direction than usual. The first few verses (really the entire song) are self-recrimination (what happened to our dreams and plans, what happened to the promises I made, why haven’t I lived up to the expectations I had for myself, why haven’t I been the person for you I always wanted to be— ‘believe I’m better than this’) but the guilt comes from his inability (he blames himself, but it’s not a failure) to fully embrace and experience the gifts of love and a life worth living—he’s not haunted by what he lacks, but by the fact that no matter what he does, no matter how much he commits, it’s simply impossible for him to ever drink it all in. There is a frustrated quality to Eddie’s delivery—now that he finally has everything he ever wanted he’s almost overwhelmed by its power.
We’ve all speculated about whether the singer here is dying, whether this is about guilt due to cigarettes (is The End inspired by his little girl asking him to stop smoking?), and what have you, but I’m not so convinced that this is the case anymore. This isn’t a song about anything so concrete. It’s not about dying, it’s about the abstract fear of dying, of having to leave everything precious behind. It mourns the impossible finality of death and exit because, for the first time, there’s something too precious to contemplate losing that would be left behind. The sickness in his bones is an awareness of his own mortality. The ‘just a human being’ lyric points to his own (unjustifiable, but no less powerful for being unjustifiable) guilt at not being able to live forever, not being able to be there forever for the people at the center of his existence. Pearl Jam’s music has always clinged to the possibility of love as the one light that could stand against the darkness of the world. Now he has it, and he’s grateful for it, but with it comes a whole new set of fears and regrets—the terror of losing it, and the remorse of not fully taking advantage of it. It gets almost frantic towards the end, as he imagines it all growing distant and slipping away—in Speed of Sound there was always the possibility of slowing down, of a distant light drawing nearer. But what happens when the light starts to dim and you know it is for the last time?
Someday, at the end of a long life, there may be such a thing as enough. We are all going to reach the point where we look to the past, rather than the future, for comfort. At that time our thinking may change, but at this point in time there’s no way to answer Eddie’s fears. There’s no comfort to be had. And so there’s a part of us that needs to not think about it. The fear of loss can paralyze us as surely as can the absence of anything worth losing, and we need to surrender to now to avoid being frozen by everything we will never experience and never know. But at the same time we need to make space for this fear, we need to hold onto the enormity of what we have to lose, so that we never take it for granted. We need those reminders sometimes, that even a dark world is full of impossibly precious things. I think that’s the real meaning behind the gasp at the climax of the song—the shock of how much has been given, and how little time we have for it. We need to make time for the past and clear space for the future, but the end draws near, and now is all we have. We had better make the most of it. Backspacer celebrates our being given the chance to do so.
Thanks for indulging me. I learn a lot about these records from doing these write ups, and being able to share it (and learn from others) gives me an excuse to do it.
I certainly see it as reflective rather than going back to the well, would be interesting to see how Backspacer ties in with their back catalogue - if only I had the time...
Yeah, I guess I see it as a condensing of a lot of what has gone before, a summarising, updating, before moving on. I'm getting ready for Pearl Jam Mk II now!!
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Tremendous. I really enjoyed reading every word of this. Agree or disagree, it's always good to get the wheels churning and see things from a point of view not considered before. I have a new appreciation for the songs I didn't love before, or at least something to listen for.
Much like the album itself, I'm a little sad that this has to end.
yeah, I second that, thanks Stip for this excellent, thought-provoking work. I've been reading all the other guided tours from the R.M. site...really interesting stuff.
So: any plans to analyze 'Vs.' in this manner?
"I know I was born and I know that I'll die...the in between is mine"
This is the end, my sweetest friend, the end. Bravo! Stipster. Thanks for enlightening us about an outstanding Pearl Jam recording. We know a lot of people around here knock Backspacer but it is one of the bands most critically aclaimed pieces of work and after a year of listening to it, shelving it and listening to it some more I appreciate it as much if not more than ever. Your reviews have helped as well. Peace.
I have enjoyed reading this immensely. Thank you for encouraging me to reconsider an album that I was struggling to fall in love with ( I even lost it for about eight months or so and didn't miss it much). Your insightful interpretation has given me an entirely new perspective and I'm finally appreciating it. I was desperately trying not to have any preconceived notions before it came out and thought I was listening to it with an open mind, so I was shocked to find what I felt was an emotional superficiality or even emptiness. I was wrong; my reception of it was coloured, tainted even, by my expectations. I won't say I'm in total agreement with your interpretation of every song but I feel you are right about the overall concept of the album and this is crucial to my reappraisal of it. I so desperately wanted to fall in love with Backspacer as I have done with all the albums (some took longer than others) and I'm grateful to you for reopening that possibility to me - I may not be there yet but I'm glad to give it another go!
thank you I write this kind of stuff to share so it's always nice to know that it's causing someone to give a record a second look. I learn a lot myself in the process since I try to understand each record on its own terms, rather than what I want it to be. I have a new appreciation for Binaural after doing that review. It's far from my favorite record, but the songs I don't really care for still seem more important and appropriate than they did just as stand alone songs.
Screw democracy - I think we've managed to come up with a pretty damned good live album, in a rapid space of time. Enjoy. Look forward to hearing what you think of this. (Go easy on us though Stip - there are no doubt lots of better live versions, but we have tried to put together a live backspacer which still works as a 'piece' - a few bonus trax too!!)
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after listening to backspacer for the past 15 months, the lyrics are really coming out. i.e Force of Nature & Amonst the Waves. I think the lyrics are the strong part of this album. The music to some of the songs is a little weak. i.e. the speed of sound, johnny guitar, got some
after listening to backspacer for the past 15 months, the lyrics are really coming out. i.e Force of Nature & Amonst the Waves. I think the lyrics are the strong part of this album. The music to some of the songs is a little weak. i.e. the speed of sound, johnny guitar, got some
all in all backspacer has grown on me
I think AOL Sessions did a "Making of Backspacer" 15 minute video interview with the band where Jeff says that he thinks Backspacer has some of the best lyrics and that he would put those lyrics up against anybody elses current lyrics. If Jeff Ament thinks likes the lyrics well then, I like the lyrics.
after listening to backspacer for the past 15 months, the lyrics are really coming out. i.e Force of Nature & Amonst the Waves. I think the lyrics are the strong part of this album. The music to some of the songs is a little weak. i.e. the speed of sound, johnny guitar, got some
all in all backspacer has grown on me
I think AOL Sessions did a "Making of Backspacer" 15 minute video interview with the band where Jeff says that he thinks Backspacer has some of the best lyrics and that he would put those lyrics up against anybody elses current lyrics. If Jeff Ament thinks likes the lyrics well then, I like the lyrics.
i will check out the interview if i can find on youtube. thanks for info
after listening to backspacer for the past 15 months, the lyrics are really coming out. i.e Force of Nature & Amonst the Waves. I think the lyrics are the strong part of this album. The music to some of the songs is a little weak. i.e. the speed of sound, johnny guitar, got some
all in all backspacer has grown on me
I think AOL Sessions did a "Making of Backspacer" 15 minute video interview with the band where Jeff says that he thinks Backspacer has some of the best lyrics and that he would put those lyrics up against anybody elses current lyrics. If Jeff Ament thinks likes the lyrics well then, I like the lyrics.
I think backspacer has some very very strong lyrics - but deceptively simple. Simple, but distilling a hell of a lot of wisdom, which is one of the reasons I think Backspacer is proving such an accessible album to non pearl jam fans as well.
I also think on this album there are sooooo many references to and echoes of previous songs, previous lyrics, going right back to Ten. Force of Nature on its own could be analysed for the sheer number of echoes of lyrics and themes of other songs. It's full of em!!
For this reason I have come to think of backspacer as a 'Watershed' record, that reflects back on the past and wraps things up, closes things off, and finds resolution to a lot of the music of the past, ready for the 'unknown future'. I also think that whilst backspacer is very accessible to 'outsiders', to get the full impact you have to have lived with the band's music for a long time. I expect that new material will prove quite a departure from this, and what has gone before. Because to me, backspacer kind of says 'end of part one'
Cancel my subscription to the Ressurection
Send my credentials to the house of detention
after listening to backspacer for the past 15 months, the lyrics are really coming out. i.e Force of Nature & Amonst the Waves. I think the lyrics are the strong part of this album. The music to some of the songs is a little weak. i.e. the speed of sound, johnny guitar, got some
all in all backspacer has grown on me
I think AOL Sessions did a "Making of Backspacer" 15 minute video interview with the band where Jeff says that he thinks Backspacer has some of the best lyrics and that he would put those lyrics up against anybody elses current lyrics. If Jeff Ament thinks likes the lyrics well then, I like the lyrics.
after listening to backspacer for the past 15 months, the lyrics are really coming out. i.e Force of Nature & Amonst the Waves. I think the lyrics are the strong part of this album. The music to some of the songs is a little weak. i.e. the speed of sound, johnny guitar, got some
all in all backspacer has grown on me
I think AOL Sessions did a "Making of Backspacer" 15 minute video interview with the band where Jeff says that he thinks Backspacer has some of the best lyrics and that he would put those lyrics up against anybody elses current lyrics. If Jeff Ament thinks likes the lyrics well then, I like the lyrics.
I think backspacer has some very very strong lyrics - but deceptively simple. Simple, but distilling a hell of a lot of wisdom, which is one of the reasons I think Backspacer is proving such an accessible album to non pearl jam fans as well.
I also think on this album there are sooooo many references to and echoes of previous songs, previous lyrics, going right back to Ten. Force of Nature on its own could be analysed for the sheer number of echoes of lyrics and themes of other songs. It's full of em!!
For this reason I have come to think of backspacer as a 'Watershed' record, that reflects back on the past and wraps things up, closes things off, and finds resolution to a lot of the music of the past, ready for the 'unknown future'. I also think that whilst backspacer is very accessible to 'outsiders', to get the full impact you have to have lived with the band's music for a long time. I expect that new material will prove quite a departure from this, and what has gone before. Because to me, backspacer kind of says 'end of part one'
Yes, a water shed moment but it does not feel forced. I t feels natural and very exhileraing. Let part two begin.
Comments
Some of the songs I think are called up by backspacer include Can't Keep, Release (speed of sound), Oceans, Rival even... the lyrics draw on a lot of themes and images from across the catalogue imho
Send my credentials to the house of detention
I didn't write the No Code tour (or the aborted Yield one) but it is really good. I got a lot out of it. No Code is probably the Pearl Jam record I like the least (I like them all, and love most, but No Code is towards the bottom) but I learned a lot from Frank's thread and it gave me a lot to chew on.
Since there’s no real narrative to Backspacer we can’t really say our journey ends with The End. It’s more appropriate to say that The End marks the conclusion of an exploration—an investigation into a state of mind. The whole record reflects the culmination of two decades of confrontation, reflection, retreat, and growth, and celebrates the hard won sense of peace, acceptance, commitment and meaning. Parts of Backspacer celebrate the immediacy of now, while others remind us that its sense of perfect freedom is somewhat meaningless in a vacuum—that without context (a sense of how the current moment is earned through past struggles), and without other people to share it with we cannot appreciate, take for granted, and are likely to lose, what we’ve worked so long and hard to achieve. Parts of Backspacer ask us to occasionally surrender to guilty pleasures, silly dreams, and an enchanted world, while other parts of the record remind us that anything worth having requires struggle, commitment, and sacrifice. While the record explores this moment in its totality, it is worth paying close attention to Backspacer’s final message. Pearl Jam chooses their final tracks very deliberately. They almost always encapsulate, if not the theme of the album, then the take away lesson they think is most important. These are not always the albums best song, but they are almost always among the most important. So what does The End ask us to take away from Backspacer?
Musically it is at once the simplest song on the record, and at the same time one of the most beautiful Pearl Jam has ever recorded, with a significant portion of its beauty deriving from its simplicity. Eddie has gotten really good at these graceful finger picking melodies. Unlike Guaranteed or Just Breathe, this one, for all the subtle movement, feels heavy, like it’s carrying the weight of history—but the weight is intimated. It’s implied, rather than forced upon us. It gives The End an understated quality that enables Eddie’s emotive performance (and the strings) to avoid descending into melodrama.
The orchestration does a wonderfully unobtrusive job filling the empty spaces in the song, providing the background images and coloration that makes The End feel like a life lived, not lived in. Each note evokes an image, reminds us of a moment, and encourages us to slide our own memory into that space, to make this the story of our life. There’s some urgency in the music, especially as the song peaks, but there is rarely sadness in the music itself. The bittersweet feel of the song comes from Eddie, not the music. The music is a quiet celebration of a life that, against long odds, found serenity and joy. It is the sound of salvation.
This is probably Eddie’s finest vocal performance on the record, and one of his best to date. It is also noteworthy that this is the case in spite of (or better, because of) the decline in the power of his voice. There’s vulnerability (‘I just want to hold on and know I’m worth your love’/’looking out from inside the bottom of a well’), defiance (‘slide on next to me’) , and empathy, like there’s always been, but it sounds lived in, rich with the quiet wisdom of experience, and the delicate vulnerability and subtle strength of age rather than the raw elemental power of his youth. I’m not sure there’s another Pearl Jam song where Eddie is as invested in every word as he is here. Eddie has always been good at sounding exposed, but there was usually a part of him that pushed back against that exposure—almost like it was involuntary. Here we have the sound of someone who, rather than fight it, hopes to open himself up to that exposure, and learn something from it. So what does he learn?
Lyrically The End is a well written enough, although the power of the song comes from the fusion of delivery, music, and history—the performance and the context—more than the actual words themselves. But, since this is a song, the performance matters, and Eddie makes this convincing.
As I said earlier, The End is not a sad song. At worst it is bittersweet. It is tinged with fear and regret, but it is the fear and regret that comes from finally winning something priceless and realizing that no matter what you do, and no matter how badly you want it, you’re going to lose it. Backspacer celebrates now, but now cannot last forever. Other songs explore how important it is to understand the struggles that led to this moment, so that we can preserve and recreate it. But The End implores us (as does, in its own way, Just Breathe) to recognize how fragile and fleeting this moment is, and so we need to embrace it while we can.
There is a slightly haunted quality to The End, but it approaches this emotion from a different direction than usual. The first few verses (really the entire song) are self-recrimination (what happened to our dreams and plans, what happened to the promises I made, why haven’t I lived up to the expectations I had for myself, why haven’t I been the person for you I always wanted to be— ‘believe I’m better than this’) but the guilt comes from his inability (he blames himself, but it’s not a failure) to fully embrace and experience the gifts of love and a life worth living—he’s not haunted by what he lacks, but by the fact that no matter what he does, no matter how much he commits, it’s simply impossible for him to ever drink it all in. There is a frustrated quality to Eddie’s delivery—now that he finally has everything he ever wanted he’s almost overwhelmed by its power.
We’ve all speculated about whether the singer here is dying, whether this is about guilt due to cigarettes (is The End inspired by his little girl asking him to stop smoking?), and what have you, but I’m not so convinced that this is the case anymore. This isn’t a song about anything so concrete. It’s not about dying, it’s about the abstract fear of dying, of having to leave everything precious behind. It mourns the impossible finality of death and exit because, for the first time, there’s something too precious to contemplate losing that would be left behind. The sickness in his bones is an awareness of his own mortality. The ‘just a human being’ lyric points to his own (unjustifiable, but no less powerful for being unjustifiable) guilt at not being able to live forever, not being able to be there forever for the people at the center of his existence. Pearl Jam’s music has always clinged to the possibility of love as the one light that could stand against the darkness of the world. Now he has it, and he’s grateful for it, but with it comes a whole new set of fears and regrets—the terror of losing it, and the remorse of not fully taking advantage of it. It gets almost frantic towards the end, as he imagines it all growing distant and slipping away—in Speed of Sound there was always the possibility of slowing down, of a distant light drawing nearer. But what happens when the light starts to dim and you know it is for the last time?
Someday, at the end of a long life, there may be such a thing as enough. We are all going to reach the point where we look to the past, rather than the future, for comfort. At that time our thinking may change, but at this point in time there’s no way to answer Eddie’s fears. There’s no comfort to be had. And so there’s a part of us that needs to not think about it. The fear of loss can paralyze us as surely as can the absence of anything worth losing, and we need to surrender to now to avoid being frozen by everything we will never experience and never know. But at the same time we need to make space for this fear, we need to hold onto the enormity of what we have to lose, so that we never take it for granted. We need those reminders sometimes, that even a dark world is full of impossibly precious things. I think that’s the real meaning behind the gasp at the climax of the song—the shock of how much has been given, and how little time we have for it. We need to make time for the past and clear space for the future, but the end draws near, and now is all we have. We had better make the most of it. Backspacer celebrates our being given the chance to do so.
Yeah, I guess I see it as a condensing of a lot of what has gone before, a summarising, updating, before moving on. I'm getting ready for Pearl Jam Mk II now!!
Send my credentials to the house of detention
Send my credentials to the house of detention
Much like the album itself, I'm a little sad that this has to end.
Thank you for givin´ us your work (and your time of course).
So: any plans to analyze 'Vs.' in this manner?
We have a little present for you. Thanks for all your hard work.
'Mixed Metaphor - Backspacer Live'
http://rearviewmirrorbootlegs.blogspot. ... pacer.html
Might be of interest to people in this thread - and Pearl Jam fans across the known universe
You can read the discussion leading up to this here
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=142297
Screw democracy - I think we've managed to come up with a pretty damned good live album, in a rapid space of time. Enjoy. Look forward to hearing what you think of this. (Go easy on us though Stip - there are no doubt lots of better live versions, but we have tried to put together a live backspacer which still works as a 'piece' - a few bonus trax too!!)
Send my credentials to the house of detention
all in all backspacer has grown on me
I think AOL Sessions did a "Making of Backspacer" 15 minute video interview with the band where Jeff says that he thinks Backspacer has some of the best lyrics and that he would put those lyrics up against anybody elses current lyrics. If Jeff Ament thinks likes the lyrics well then, I like the lyrics.
i will check out the interview if i can find on youtube. thanks for info
I think backspacer has some very very strong lyrics - but deceptively simple. Simple, but distilling a hell of a lot of wisdom, which is one of the reasons I think Backspacer is proving such an accessible album to non pearl jam fans as well.
I also think on this album there are sooooo many references to and echoes of previous songs, previous lyrics, going right back to Ten. Force of Nature on its own could be analysed for the sheer number of echoes of lyrics and themes of other songs. It's full of em!!
For this reason I have come to think of backspacer as a 'Watershed' record, that reflects back on the past and wraps things up, closes things off, and finds resolution to a lot of the music of the past, ready for the 'unknown future'. I also think that whilst backspacer is very accessible to 'outsiders', to get the full impact you have to have lived with the band's music for a long time. I expect that new material will prove quite a departure from this, and what has gone before. Because to me, backspacer kind of says 'end of part one'
Send my credentials to the house of detention
http://vodpod.com/watch/2074109-pearl-j ... backspacer
Go to 3:40 and you will hear Jeff say that he doesn't think there is a better record lyrically out there.
Yes, a water shed moment but it does not feel forced. I t feels natural and very exhileraing. Let part two begin.