chucky
chucky
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I'm so lost right now

Posted almost 6 years ago
I just got to an item that has been on my to do list for, oh hell, 15 years. (It hurts that I have a 15 year old to do list and that I am old enough to have a 15 year old to do list – urgh.) Looking up the lyrics to Ten by Pearl Jam. This album, for me, is the best album of all times. I knew I felt that way the first time I listened to it and haven’t changed my mind in all of the intervening years. However, crappy liner notes and a marble mouth singer means that I pretty much made up my own lyrics.And, generally, that’s ok with me. What is really upsetting to me right now is that Release, the final song on the album, has been the song that I listen to whenever I need to cry since I got the album. When I hurt and I need to let it out, this is the first song I listen to. Now, I always thought that the lyrics to the second verse were:Oh, dear dad, can you see me now?I am myself and I could use some helpI'll ride the wave where it takes me.I'll hold the pain...release me.When that second line is actually:I am myself like you somehowNow, that may not seem like a big deal to anyone else. But, for me, that was the point when my chin would start to quiver. The beginning of the cleansing. Now, I don’t have that anymore. (Damnit, I am so not looking up the lyrics to “Just Wait” by the Blues Travelers now.)
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Comments (5)

  1. Anonymous says Oh, I have ALL my very own Pearl Jam lyrics. Yellow Ledbetter is a good one for that. My lyrics make no sense of course, but I at least can sing it at the top of my lungs :)
    Permalink posted 07/29/2006
  2. SWozniak
    SWozniak says Dude, sing it how you feel it. Seriously. FTR, I always knew that it was "like you somehow," and that always made it that much sadder, as there was some sort of inevitability to the problems the person whose POV (Eddie?) was singing it from.
    Permalink posted 07/29/2006
  3. InventingSituations
    InventingSituations says yeah, thats always kind of a drag when you realize the lyrics/meanings you had worked out for yourself turn out to be...well...not "wrong", but...wrong. I always respected pearl jam for their occasional insistence on leaving such things up to the listener, though recently they inexplicably decided to publish their whole catalog, thus destroying the mystery. The "I am myself/like you somehow" line is an interesting one though...a bit of a reference to the storyline in Alive (and Once/Footsteps) in which this young kid is coming to terms with the fact that he resembles his deceased father, triggering an oedipal realtionship with his mother...intersesting in the grand scheme of the mythology of the record and that story; but pretty devastating to any personal interpretations a listener may have had...seeing as very few listeners (I assume) have had such dramas play out in their own lives. Anyway...drag. Still a good song though.
    Permalink posted 07/29/2006
  4. Moof
    Moof says Yeah, Vedder's sloppy, emotional, and low vocals on _Ten_ make for difficult interpretation. It's fine to just to gather what you can and let the rest be a sort of vocal Rorschach Test. I don't know about you, but I often find myself still singing my "wrong" lyrics even after I discover I was mistaken. _Ten_ was one of the first times I'd bought an album just as it's popularity was ascending rather than well after it had already peaked. I loved just about the whole thing, especially "Alive" and "Release." Ten is Pearl Jam's best album, by far, and is good enough to make me forgive ex-record exec Eddie Vedder for being airlifted in from outside to salvage the incredibly talented remnants of the tragically broken Mother Love Bone and then pretending as if he had always been the tortured artist. (It's weird the grudges we hold, isn't it?)
    Permalink posted 07/30/2006
  5. chucky
    chucky says I won't even get into Yellow Ledbetter - my interpretation of one line is just embarrassing wrong. :) See, I thought I am myself and I could use some help was pretty damn sad. As in, I am so screwed up naturally that there may be no hope. I never thought about the inner connectivity of the songs. That is very interesting and, yep, I hope not many people have that personal life. Moof - long time no see:). I didn't know Vedder was a record exec. How hilarious.
    Permalink posted 07/30/2006

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