Tremor Christ meaning (or your interpretation)

LucasF wrote:

The lyric is really beautiful...I think he is talking about those times when we are lost, and something beyond what we can comprehend plays a part in helping us find a way out...a new love, a new path...to be in a fragile little boat and endure the heaviest storm...it could be something that has nothin to do with all this...but this was my first impression anyway....I think the words are by Jeff, right? not sure...

I think the subject of the song did something bad or made a bad decision that is coming back to haunt him (little secrets or tremors turning to quakes) and is trying to decide how to deal with the situation. The easy choice is to keep running/not face the consequences. The hard choice is to turn back and face the consequences. I think he's dreading making the choice but knows he must (the sailor drfiting by the storm). He ultimately decides to face the consequences even though he doesn't know what will happen next (turns the bow back/puts faith and love in tremor christ).

I've always seen this as a song about having to leave a beloved behind - the protagonist goes forth (the sea serves as a metaphor for this), the 'organ' left behind is the heart (either the protagonist's own heart or a symbol standing for the beloved), the beloved is left struggling, 'drowning' as a result of the protagonist's abandonment (real or imagined on the part of the protagonist), there are potential problems and temptations to overcome (the devil reference) but the protagonist will eventually return to the lover, as a seamen would eventually return home, to dry land. The protagonist 'puts his faith in love' in order to see him right again, to help him return to shore, to his beloved. I suppose the Christ reference is as a juxtaposition to the devil: like Christ in the desert, the protagonist overcomes temptation and returns, relatively unscathed, if perhaps a little weather-worn (hence the 'tremor' perhaps?).

Of course, I may be talking utter bollocks but I do love trying to figure these things out

This. Song. Kicks. Ass.

The Waiting Trophy Man wrote:

This. Song. Kicks. Ass.

even if I am french and it's sometimes difficult for me to understand the hidden meanings behind the lyrics, I can say that this is a bad ass song, above all the last verse, shouted by Ed

long life to Pearl jam

The Waiting Trophy Man wrote:

This. Song. Kicks. Ass.

agreed. love it.

to me it's about secrets, lies that we all get caught up in. the bad things that we do to get what we want, how we get tempted to do bad things so easily and so many of us fall into a trap. one that we can't escape from and it just keeps getting bigger and bigger. same for lying and how easy it is and how it creates a web that we can get tangled in.
also about being strong willed, doing things for you instead of doing it to please others, having faith

lots of different ideas really, i get a different meaning from it each time i listen to it

my favourite part:

I'll decide...take the dive...
Take my time...not my life...
Wait for signs...believe in lies...
To get by...it's divine...whoa...
Oh, you know what it's like...

and of course

Little secrets, tremors...turned to quake...
The smallest oceans still get...big, big waves...

LucasF wrote:

The lyric is really beautiful...I think he is talking about those times when we are lost, and something beyond what we can comprehend plays a part in helping us find a way out...a new love, a new path...to be in a fragile little boat and endure the heaviest storm...

and the smallest oceans still get great big waves

so the thing that "corrects your course" is never what you expect it to be and sometimes what is good for you in the long run isn't always for someone else

I've always kind of struggled with this one, too. There's definitely a religious component to it, and not just because of the word "Christ" and various aluusions to angels and the devil.

The bridge part, about waiting for signs, believing in lies, to get by ... from certain vantage points, that's the very definition of organized religion. And of course, all of the above, Ed says (derisively, I think) is "divine" -- another religious term.

My best guess about this song is that it's about people who call on someone to save them who isn't even there. Or something.

BSully wrote:

I think I read long ago, that Ed said that the song didn't really have a meaning and it was whatever the listener thought it was.

So using that logic, I guess the songs has endless meaning even to one person.

For me however, I think it is somewhat of an indivdual have a conflict with himself...

I personally think that's true of every song - the part where he said it's whatever the listener thinks it is.

I know there are some songs with more obvious meanings, but with all music, it's all subjective and interpretative and so I agree - it does have endless meanings.
I also agree with your interpretation of the song - I feel like it's about that too amongst other things.

slightofjeff wrote:

The bridge part, about waiting for signs, believing in lies, to get by ... from certain vantage points, that's the very definition of organized religion

This...
and no, lyrics do not belong to Jeff. In fact these lyrics have that signature "Vedder feeling". How anyone assumes these are Jeff lyrics is surprising to me.

This is from THE SKY I SCRAPEs guided tour of vitalogy
i think its pretty dead on with the mean...


There is a lot going on in Vitalogy but one of the main themes playing itself out is the desire for purity in the face of corruption—a desire for the salvation of music, and the salvation of self in a world where both are threatened, perverted, distorted (I’ve long felt Red Mosquito needs to be on Vitalogy, as it is addressing these same themes).

RM poster SLH has made the argument that Not For You should be seen as working itself out over time, rather than capturing a particular moment—and her interpretation makes a great deal of sense segueing into Tremor Christ. It picks up in the aftermath of a metaphorical shipwreck and while the song is exhausted you can cut yourself on its jagged sounds and sharp vocals. Musically Tremor Christ does a wonderful job evoking the stormy feel of the song. The subject had succumbed to the superficial ease of temptation, the promise of reward without cost. Slight surrenders of principle, seemingly innocuous decisions quickly spiral out of control. The smallest oceans still get big big waves. It turns out that there was a steep price after all, demanding payment in terms of lost love, lost innocence, lost purity. Both the art and the artist suffer for the easy choices, for the refusal to see the hidden price of playing the game instead of choosing to move Sisyphus’s rock. We’re left with an exhausted artist, passion bleeding itself dry, and the emancipatory promise of the music drowning in the wake left by the industry.

The second verse, chronologically, comes before the first one—it’s a flashback of sorts, what happened to the subject that lead to him washed up on the shore. The Devil is seductive, and it is rare for the angels to reach an artist before they’ve accepted his bargain, to let him know exactly what is at stake. We can hope for angels but if we’re honest with ourselves we know it is going we’re going to have to learn to fight the devils (this theme returns in Corduroy and Satan’s Bed).

While the subject is wounded, he isn’t dead yet. The second half of the song is a fighting creed, a declaration to resist, to forgo temptation and endure hardship, to do what is necessary to regain control over his soul, the only prize the devil ever seeks. And the song ends with the eerily calm determination to turn the boat back to the water, enter the waves and prepare to fight, with nothing on his side but faith in love (love of music, love as meaningful attachment and solidarity, love as purity), and the knowledge that the struggle itself has meanings. The liner notes of Not For You intimate that Eddie has at least a passing familiarity with Albert Camus, and this really starts to play itself out in the moments of defiance on Vitalogy (here, Whipping, and Corduroy). There is never any guarantee, or even expectation of victory, but it is the fight that preserves our humanity. There is no promise that he’ll find what he is looking for, and in fact he may be too far gone to be redeemed, but he is willing to accept responsibility for the mistakes made, and he is willing to keep searching for the possibility of a wavering, uncertain salvation (tremor Christ). Since that is all we can have, it will have to be enough.