Ed & smoking - small rant

DewieCox

95% of Ed's voice deterioration is due to age.

"If I wasn't suckin on a cough drop, I was puffin on a cigarette." John Lennon

Singing voices are a fickle thing. Robert Plant came down with some kinda throat infection in 1973 and his voice was changed forever.

Maybe the cigarettes Ed has smoked have caused him less stress and saved a fatal heart attack.

soulsinging

DewieCox wrote:

95% of Ed's voice deterioration is due to age.

"If I wasn't suckin on a cough drop, I was puffin on a cigarette." John Lennon

Singing voices are a fickle thing. Robert Plant came down with some kinda throat infection in 1973 and his voice was changed forever.

Maybe the cigarettes Ed has smoked have caused him less stress and saved a fatal heart attack.

I suspect 95% of Ed's vocal problems have to do with the fact that the band plays every song twice as fast as they should when they do it live. Listen to g2f now vs 98 with Jack Irons... it's barely the same song. The Benaroya performance shows Ed still has it, I just think he's getting killed up there trying to keep up with a band on speed. Add to that the number of crappy, forced punk songs (Comatose and the like) and you have a recipe for a guy that's 40 still trying to sing and growl like he's 20. We need more tunes like Present Tense and Immortality and less crappy riff rockers like Save You, Get Right, Comatose, and Big Wave... THAT would help the vocal sound more than anything I think.

dreamweaver

somebody said this in the thread, I'm just too lazy to quote it....


back in the day, pearl jam were only playing 1 hour 20 min shows, max... now they play close to 3 hours.

blame it on the cigs if you will. but I could name 25 more things why he doesn't sing like that anymore..

this conversation has been sooo played out it ridiculous.

last thing, if you had ears, you could hear that he sings more in tune now, when he used to be very pitchy.

pearljambrat

Indifference71 wrote:

God I hate these threads.

I'm pretty sure Ed knows that cigarettes are bad for you. He'll do whatever the fuck he wants.

If you dont like the way his voice sounds anymore, then dont go to any more shows. It's pretty simple.

LAD

easier said than done to quit

etc etc

blah blah blah

JordyWordy

dreamweaver wrote:

last thing, if you had ears, you could hear that he sings more in tune now, when he used to be very pitchy. [/color]

this is something that isnt pointed out enough!! Eds voice was all over the place at times, not always. he missed notes wildly at times though. especially in that vitalogy-no code era....."pitchy" is the right word for it, his voice went from soulful to nasal to hoarse within individual songs....he has much better control of that now. and he's far better at hitting notes spot on now.

his bad moments were always littered with exceptional moments so thats nothing new. eg Riot Act tour - very hit & miss. 2007 tour - compare Dusseldorf/Copenhagen/Vic shows with his voice at Werchter & Lolla (a whole day drinking & smoking from the sounds of it).

so, he's a better singer imo, and can do far more styles than he could when he was young (spoken word, soft ITW stuff, Arc, Croon Spoon, still has low range etc) but there's no way singing doesnt affect your voice. any singer i know admits to that. you have to take more care of it in other ways (breathing, stamina & control exercises etc)

LineOneMightyFine

Whatever happened to him being on the Master Cleanse? Guess it didn't take?

PJFAN_seattle

Save your breath I doubt Eddie is going to go to pearljam.com go to the forums, read this thread and then decide to quit because you want him too.
Maybe he will who knows but im not gonna work myself up over it our opinions make no difference.

besides he still sounds damn good!

Stephen Flow

you'd think w/ 2 kids and all he'd try and stop.

PJFAN_seattle

Stephen Flow wrote:

you'd think w/ 2 kids and all he'd try and stop.

Plenty of parents smoke.
my friends mom just died of lung cancer actually from smoking all her life. sadly its not uncommon for parents 2 smoke

APlasticHeart

Eddie Quit smoking. He was on the lemonade diet a few months ago to cleanse his system. Wanted to quit for his kids.

E.K

I hope that Ed gets his throat and lungs checked regularly.

stratmad

Thanks to those who agree. Those who are worried about me or anyone telling Ed what to do, please read the original post again - I said Ed CAN do as he pleases with HIS LIFE, smoking or no smoking. Simply that I as a listener just wish he would quit for the sake of his voice. If he doesn't or doesn't want to, then more power to him. I still love the man's and the band's music.

justam

Maybe subconsciously he wants to retire and this is his way of making sure he can?

I don't know.

I think for his family, his early death would be a more pressing reason to hope he'd quit.

P.S. People can cop-out and say "Oh, he can do what he wants, blah, blah, blah..." but really, everyday he continues smokes he's cutting his life shorter!! :?

John Briggs 2008

Obama smokes.....so does ED. Ed for president!

soulsinging

justam wrote:

P.S. People can cop-out and say "Oh, he can do what he wants, blah, blah, blah..." but really, everyday he continues smokes he's cutting his life shorter!! :?

“I have something to tell you non-smokers that I know for a fact that you don't know, and I feel it's my duty to pass on information at all times. Ready?. . . . Non-smokers die every day . . . Enjoy your evening. See, I know that you entertain this eternal life fantasy because you've chosen not to smoke, but let me be the 1st to POP that bubble and bring you hurling back to reality . . . You're dead too.” -Bill Hicks

What's so fucking great about living to be 90 to sit in a nursing home to piss yourself, forget the existence of everyone you ever loved as your brain rots with Alzheimer's, and spend 1.5 hours moving at a pace a snail would scoff at to get downstairs and get your fucking mail? No fucking thanks. This whole wanting to live forever shit is not for me. Let me go out quickly and in my prime and dosed with mountains of painkillers and weed for my cancer. Thank you.

This thread inspired me to buy a pack of smokes today. Light up motherfuckers!

LukinFan

Lone Wolf wrote:

Here we go again......
Not trying to be a jerk but Ed smoking is none of your/our business..... :roll:

ditto

justam

soulsinging wrote:

justam wrote:

P.S. People can cop-out and say "Oh, he can do what he wants, blah, blah, blah..." but really, everyday he continues smokes he's cutting his life shorter!! :?

“I have something to tell you non-smokers that I know for a fact that you don't know, and I feel it's my duty to pass on information at all times. Ready?. . . . Non-smokers die every day . . . Enjoy your evening. See, I know that you entertain this eternal life fantasy because you've chosen not to smoke, but let me be the 1st to POP that bubble and bring you hurling back to reality . . . You're dead too.” -Bill Hicks

What's so fucking great about living to be 90 to sit in a nursing home to piss yourself, forget the existence of everyone you ever loved as your brain rots with Alzheimer's, and spend 1.5 hours moving at a pace a snail would scoff at to get downstairs and get your fucking mail? No fucking thanks. This whole wanting to live forever shit is not for me. Let me go out quickly and in my prime and dosed with mountains of painkillers and weed for my cancer. Thank you.

This thread inspired me to buy a pack of smokes today. Light up motherfuckers!

Yeah. It's harder to be so blaze (imagine an accent on the E) about smoking when you've lost people you love because they smoked for 50 years and died at SEVENTY when they could have lived longer. It's painful to lose people you love because of cigarettes. Sorry for stating the obvious!!

Cardinal

the OP needs to mind their own business.

soulsinging

justam wrote:

Yeah. It's harder to be so blaze (imagine an accent on the E) about smoking when you've lost people you love because they smoked for 50 years and died at SEVENTY when they could have lived longer. It's painful to lose people you love because of cigarettes. Sorry for stating the obvious!!

70? Isn't average life expectancy like 72? It cost em 2 years?

One of my best friends' mother (and my own surrogate mom in hs) died in her early 50s from cancer. She barely hung on to see him graduate. She did not smoke. It sucked, yes. But not smoking is no guarantee you won't lose a loved one and smoking does not mean you will. You act like 70 is the new 20. People DIE. No one lives forever. When did everyone become so obsessed with living forever? What's an "acceptable" age to die now? Is it based on your selfish demands for their company, or should it be more about when the person is ready to go and whether or not they enjoyed their life? Maybe the smoking helped them cope with life being a pile of shit and helped make them better company when they were around. Maybe if they hadn't smoked they'd have been bitter and angry all the time and when they hit 95 you'd be sitting there wishing they'd die so they'd stop bumming you out.

UpSideDown

DT18079 wrote:

Eddie Quit smoking. He was on the lemonade diet a few months ago to cleanse his system. Wanted to quit for his kids.

I thought the cleansing was only for a couple of weeks?

Although I feel like it should be none of our business......I still care about it. I do hope he quits if nothing else for his own health / kids. Maybe smoking has gotten too expensive for him anyway.

Also.......when did the abbreviation"OP" become so popular?