What’s The Darkest Pearl Jam Song?

My Lucky Hand
My Lucky Hand Staten Island, New York Posts: 14
edited May 2025 in Words and Music...Communication
There’s no shortage of PJ songs that touch on dark subjects and soundscapes. Which one would you say is the absolute darkest, bleakest track in their repertoire.

Subject wise, I would say the Alive -> Once -> Footsteps trilogy and really all of Ten qualify, plus Tremor Christ which I always interpreted as selling your soul in either a literal or metaphorical way. 

Sonically, Indifference and Dead Man are both very sparse and spacey, with an increasingly tense atmosphere that drives home the darkness of the lyrics.

A lot of Binaural has a very evil energy to it: Nothing as It Seems, Rival, Soon Forget, Parting Ways.

Comments

  • We All Believe
    We All Believe Eastchester, NY Posts: 984
    "I'm Still Here" gets my vote.
    May your days be long, til kingdom come.
  • JeBurkhardt
    JeBurkhardt Posts: 5,412
    4/20/02
  • Detroit Dan
    Detroit Dan Detroit Posts: 4
    Deep gets my vote. The bridge still makes me anxious and angry every time I hear it. 
  • FC28207
    FC28207 Posts: 81
    Rival
    1. Red Rocks '95, second night starting on chairs
    2. buncha others, doesn't really matter
  • Vinylicious
    Vinylicious Posts: 672
    Fatal 
  • PJinIL
    PJinIL satan's bed Posts: 442
    If really drilling down, in a few minutes of thought I have landed on Jeremy. There isn't much darker a thing to think about than what state a person, especially a young person, must be in to perform such an act on themselves or others.


    Runners up:
    Dirtyfrank
    WMA
    It's amazing what you hear when you take time to listen.

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