Dissident = Date Rape?

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Comments

  • Fahka
    Fahka Posts: 3,187
    CC279494 wrote:
    im all for different meanings. thats what i love about these guys. everyone gets a different feel and reaction to the same music
    i always thought it was about a one night stand that lead to giving up the kid to adoption.
    i really get that date rape thoughts though. makes complete sense


    wow! see i love reading all the different interps.. and yep, that's what separates pearl jam from the bunch! I've noticed that everyone in the band who writes lyrics kind of writes in a way that it doesn't just spell everything out . To be honest i never even thought about Dissident's meaning (which is weird because i do with pretty much every other song) I just always enjoyed the guitar work, and the general composure of the songs.


    i just remember how it made me feel , specially the Tb2k version :o
  • mrshock13
    mrshock13 Posts: 472
    dharma69 wrote:

    I really need to listen to a little less Pearl Jam.

    TAKE THAT BACK!!! You, and we all, know you don't mean it.

    On a related note, a poster higher up explained about the lady who took in a young man on the run, took care of him, and turned him in because he was too hard to take care of. That's the meaning of the song, that's what Ed said about the song.
  • stevehomeair
    stevehomeair Posts: 318
    About a girl who cannot afford a child and leaves him at the hospital..But can't sleep and goes back the next day to pick him up...His name was Eddie Cuthbertson born in sarnia Canada almost 4 and 1/2 years ago my nephew
  • InsideJobTodayOld
    InsideJobTodayOld Posts: 4
    That's interesting, i've never thought of the song having a meaning this way. You mentioning rape as a possible reference to this song, however, makes me think of a Dateline documentary i saw about a month ago. Basically a girl at UVA back in the early 80's got raped at a fraternity party. At the time she reported him to the school, but nothing was done. She ended up leaving the university. 21 years later her attacker contacted her via email to appologize for the incident. She emailed him back saying he ruined her life. After several emails back and forth, she ended up turning him into the police. He was then prosecuted and sent to jail...i'm not sure eddie had this type of meaning from the song, but it definately has some similarities to this story and other rape stories im sure....very interesting. Here's an article i dug up on the story im referring to.

    http://www.readthehook.com/Stories/2006 ... s12St.html
  • Elbereth84
    Elbereth84 Posts: 253
    After all your rape/abortion interpretations (which makes absolute sense imo) I'll throw in a new idea ... cause I always thought the song is about medically assisted suicide:

    She nursed him there, over a night
    I wasn't so sure she wanted him to stay
    What to say...what to say
    But soon she was down, soon he was low
    At a quarter past...a holy no...
    She had to turn around
    When she couldn't hold, oh...she folded...
    A dissident is here
    Escape is never, the safest path
    A dissident, a dissident is here

    As simply as it sounds: She nursed a deathly sick person. By this time she still wasn't sure, if it's the right thing to keep him alive, cause his life isn't worth living anymore. She decided to end his life, but in the last minute she got a bad concience, the "holy no". Her heart said it would be the right thing to "help" him, but in her mind she wasn't sure. She wasn't strong enough to do it, she gave in.

    And to this day, she's glided on
    Always home but so far away
    Like a word misplaced
    Nothing said, what a waste
    When she had contact...with the conflict...
    There was meaning, but she sold him to the state
    She had to turn around
    When she couldn't hold...she folded...
    A dissident is here
    Escape is never, the safest path
    A dissident, a dissident is here

    Since that day her life changed. She thought about this whole weird situation ever and ever again, her inner conflict. She sold him to the state = cause helping to end someones life would mean violating the law. Instead of doing a supposedly "right thing", she caved in. This way she was on the safe side ... although her inner conflict was her constant conflict from this day on.

    For me a dissident is just someone, who thinks different (although the didn't go by her own thoughts/instinct).

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