What Books Do Ed & The Band Read?
Byrnzie
Posts: 21,037
I was wondering if anyone knew of any books that Ed had mentioned which he considered to be inspirational to him and/or the band and the music.
Can anyone throw out a few names?
Can anyone throw out a few names?
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"I don't believe in damn curses. Wake up the damn Bambino and have me face him. Maybe I'll drill him in the ass." --- Pedro Martinez
Of course, but I was thinking more along the lines of novels. I remember someone on the pit a while back mentioning a novel that was an inspiration to Ed as he'd talked of it in interviews, and referenced it in songs. I can't remember the name of it now.
And I can't even see my sig on this new pit. I know it's the Zinn quote. How come I can't see it?
Edit: O.k, I just fixed it.
Thanks. Keep 'em coming.
One of my all time favourite books. I've lost track of the number of times I have read it (I have a few books like that...)
I just found this:
http://www.ishmael.com/Interaction/Qand ... Record=373
The Question...
'New interest in ISHMAEL, as I'm sure you know, has been spawned by the band Pearl Jam in the last year. Do you have any thoughts about their use of the book as inspiration for the production of their album YIELD and more specifically the song "Do the Evolution"? Just wondering if you'd heard it and what you thought.'
Daniel Quinn:
'YIELD sits on my desktop and I often give it a listen (in fact, writing this answer gave me an excuse to play it again). A teacher once told me that even though he wasn’t teaching ISHMAEL or the material in ISHMAEL, the book had changed the WAY he teaches. This pleased me more than if he’d said he was teaching my ideas. Another went to a lot of trouble to try to capture all the ideas in my books in a ninety-minute “motivational” speech. I told him he shouldn’t just try to capture my ideas in his words, he had to go BEYOND my ideas to find his OWN ideas, his OWN way of motivating people. This is what Eddie Vedder has done. He hasn’t tried to express my ideas in his songs. Changed by reading my work, he’s written songs he wouldn’t have written two years ago—but his own songs, not any songs I would ever write (if I were a song-writer). Inspiration is very different from recapitulation. The credits of he movie INSTINCT say it was “inspired” by ISHMAEL, but it makes no effort to recapitulate ISHMAEL. Of the songs in YIELD, “Do the Evolution” comes closest to being an expression of my ideas, but I suspect Vedder would find many other, more subtle connections. Two or three writers have changed my life forever in works I haven’t read for decades. I’m certainly not writing anything they would write---but the “inspiration” they gave me never goes away.'
http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Yield_(album)
'Lyrically, Yield continued with the more contemplative type of writing found on No Code. Vedder said, "What was rage in the past has become reflection. In the past we got really angry and we cried out against many things in our songs, and I think our message reached to people pretty well this way. But where do you go after that? I think when you become an adult you have to express your energy in a different way, more calm. That doesn't mean we forget the bad side of life, because it still appears in our songs. But what it's now exciting, a real challenge, is facing it from a more positive point of view, looking for a way to solve it. In the past we said: what a shit, this stinks, that sucks, everything sucks... Now it's time to say: stop, let's look for a solution, let's be positive." Several songs on the album were inspired by literary works, including Mikhail Bulgakov's novel The Master and Margarita, ("Pilate"), Daniel Quinn's novel Ishmael ("Do the Evolution"), and the writings of Charles Bukowski ("In Hiding"). Gossard penned the lyrics for the songs "No Way" and "All Those Yesterdays", and Ament, making his first lyrical contributions to a Pearl Jam album, penned the lyrics for the songs "Pilate" and "Low Light". Ament said, "[to] watch Eddie put his heart into singing lyrics that I wrote, was an experience I can't put into words."
Gossard said "No Way" expresses the idea that "maybe we all need to just live life and quit trying to prove something." According to Vedder, "Given to Fly" is about "rising above anybody's comments about what you do and still giving your love away," "Do the Evolution" is about "someone who's drunk with technology, who thinks they're the controlling living being on this planet," "MFC" takes place "in a car" and is about "getting the fuck out of a problem," and "In Hiding" is about "taking a fast from life." Ament said that "Pilate" concerned a question he was asking himself, and that it deals with a "recurring dream about being old and just me and my dog sitting on the porch," while "Low Light" was the answer, and that it deals with "a kind of gratefulness at finding that place of calm and peace at my center and getting a glimpse of the person I could choose to be."
The album's cover art shows an empty road underneath a bright blue sky with a yield sign on the right-hand side of the road. The front cover art image was taken from a photograph of a road outside Billings, Montana.
The photograph was doctored to form a 360° panorama. The cover of the cassette version has slightly different artwork, moving the yield sign from the right of the road to the left side and reversing the picture of the road. Regarding the liner notes art, there is a yield sign hidden in every picture in the booklet. At the 1999 Grammy Awards, Yield received a nomination for Best Recording Package.
The album title is rooted in the idea of "yielding to nature," a theme central to Daniel Quinn
The band members read the book while working on the album. Regarding the title, McCready said, "I think the title Yield has to do with maybe being more comfortable within ourselves, with this band....we're all a little bit older and a little more relaxed and maybe just kind of yielding to those anxieties and not trying to fight it so much...That's what it kind of feels to me – yielding, letting something else happen and going with it."
This is an older list, but pretty good.
The Master And Margarita
I own and have read both, currently reading Ishmael for the second time..it truly is a beautiful book.
M&M was good, but a little off the wall (apparently this was Jeff's helpful inspiration for songs like Pilate and Low Light, which he has stated are kind of a question/answer pairing.)
6/12/08 - Tampa, FL
8/23/09 - Chicago, IL
9/28/09 - Salt Lake City, UT (11 years too long!!!)
9/03/11 - East Troy, WI - PJ20 - Night 1
9/04/11 - East Troy, WI - PJ20 - Night 2
9/29/04 Boston, 6/28/08 Mansfield, 8/23/09 Chicago, 5/15/10 Hartford
5/17/10 Boston, 10/15/13 Worcester, 10/16/13 Worcester, 10/25/13 Hartford
8/5/16 Fenway, 8/7/16 Fenway
EV Solo: 6/16/11 Boston, 6/18/11 Hartford,
Nice. I'll check it out. I've never been a big fan of Vonnegut. I read Player 'Piano' years ago, and 'Timequake'.
That is a very interesting book...I don't pull my copy out to read it much cause it's extremely old, dirty, and fragile, but it's something that steals a lot of my time when I let it.
6/12/08 - Tampa, FL
8/23/09 - Chicago, IL
9/28/09 - Salt Lake City, UT (11 years too long!!!)
9/03/11 - East Troy, WI - PJ20 - Night 1
9/04/11 - East Troy, WI - PJ20 - Night 2
I was actually interested in readin some stuff, but there's so many things to read about out there I dunno where to start. I've read some biographies, books about bands and other stuff like that but was wantin to branch out and maybe enrich myself. I usually just sit around and listen to music, with the tv on.
There's about 5-10 books that I normally recommend to people.
In no particular order the list goes something like this:
The Dice Man - Luke Rhinehardt
One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest - Kesey
Mysteries - Knut Hamsun
On The Road - Kerouac
Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas - Hunter S. Thompson
Tropic Of Capricorn - Henry Miller
Post Office - Charles Bukowski
Erections, Ejaculations, Exhibitions, and General Tales of Ordinary Madness - Charles Bukowski
In The Spirit of Crazy Horse - Peter Matthiessen
Papillon - Henri Cherriere
The Western Lands - William Burroughs