Betterman/Nothingman question

this doesnt really help with understanding nothingman but it was all I could find at shirt notice. Taken from http://www.twofeetthink.com

Betterman
"It's a new song, but it was written a long time ago. And it's dedicated to the bastard that married my mama" -Eddie Vedder (onstage in Atlanta, April 3, 1994)"Sometimes I think of how far I've come from the teenager sitting on the bed in San Diego writing 'Better Man' and wondering if anyone would ever even hear it." -Eddie Vedder (Los Angeles Times, December 22, 1996)


"Nothingman" was written in an hour, and so I like listening to that 'cause it just happened and somehow captured a mood there, at least for me in the vocal. Any time I can nail down a song, a thought, in a half hour, that feels really good. -Eddie Vedder (Spin, December 1994)

LedZepFan wrote:

Uh doesnt nothingman come BEFORE betterman on vitalogy though?

Maybe theyre both ABOUT Leatherman, but that would be kinda weird. I dont know, the connection the original poster made was pretty good.


Whats the Alive trilogy?

I could see that connection with leatherman. There's a guy who fucked up a relationship in Betterman or something cas he didn't know what he had. Then in nothingman he realizes how much he loved her and how much he needed her (and vise versa). He realizes that hes not much of a man without her. So he goes off on his own, roams from town to town and has weird habits like wearing all leather. The leather is a dependency for him. He needs it just like he needed the girl. It's sort of taking the place of the girl, but unlike the girl, leather will never leave him. So he's kinda left loving leather for the rest of his live. Eddie even compares himself to leatherman.

Just think...why does this guy like leather so much?...there's gotta be a reason behind it
I think it might be because he fucked up a relationship or something. Maybe this is a little far fetched but I thought I'd throw it out there.

Actually, eddie wrote lyrics/music to nothingman...he wrote the music and lyrics for every song on vitalogy...As for the Alive trilogy, It goes, Once, Alive, Footsteps...those are the three!!! Leatherman's a great one, but definitely not part of that little collection there!!!

Betterman308 wrote:

Then Nothingman talks of a guy whos broken up with girl and now finds himself on his own, empty, a nothingman.
"He who forgets, will be destined to remember" , he took her for granted and now lives the rest of his life with that thought.

For some reason, I was listening to Nothingman a lot in September of 2001. I got to the line "And he who forgets will be destined to remember.." and thought of it as "if you forget about some single emotional event, then you'll end up regretting it because you can't forget it.." or something like that.

FWIW, I was also listening to the Las Vegas version of untitled (intro to MFC) a lot then as well, and got to the line "oh everyone's confused, they're all __forget this part__ in their rooms.." and it was weird how true THAT bit was as well. I was living in a college dormitory at the time, and everyone was just in their rooms glued to the TV, as i'm sure the situation was in all colleges across the country.

Betterman308 wrote:

Is this another set of songs similar to the Alive trilogy, if so whats the third song?
Any thoughts about all this??

I'm not sure, but FWIW, i've heard that Rearviewmirror might be a part 2 of MFC.. in the first part they want to go for a drive, and in the 2nd part it's getting away from something nasty.