Ed & smoking - small rant

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.

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.

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)

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 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

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

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!! :?

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!!