After an historic start (their debut album sold 13 million copies, and its follow-up, Vs., set a then record for most copies sold in its initial week), Pearl Jam has quietly continued to make music for the better part of 28 years, and continued the tradition of bands such as the Rolling Stones and The Who, on to REM and U2, who have had long careers and continuously gave their fans the best that music has to offer. There's a lot more to Pearl Jam's history than can be covered in a brief recap such as this, but four of the five original members are still with the band, with the fifth having been with the Pearl Jam for twenty years. Through that time they've released ten albums, won a couple of Grammy Awards, lost an epic battle with Ticketmaster over the pricing of their tickets, toured worldwide and been featured in just about every music festival at some point, and were eventually elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in their first year of eligibility in 2017. Pearl Jam has been something of an oddity, as the band as a whole has never been comfortable with its fame, and in fact, since its debut album, doesn't do much television, gives few interviews, and has completely refused, even when music videos were still an interesting vehicle, to do any more music videos. And while the band may not have had quite the success they had in its early years, it has nonetheless thrived. Kudos also to Pearl Jam for being strong supporters of a woman's right to choose (all five members are male, too), supporting numerous liberal causes, and helping the greatest President of my lifetime, Barack Obama, in both of his Presidential campaigns.
Released in 1991 on Ten, Pearl Jam's hella debut album, "Black" was never promoted as a single because the band refused to let the label release it as such, feeling the song was too personal in nature and that overplaying it would destroy the song's heart and soul. The song has, though, gone on to become a fan favorite, and in 2011 was voted the ninth best ballad of all time by the readers of Rolling Stone (for whatever that award is worth...).
Written by Eddie Vedder with music by guitarist Stone Gossard, "Black," Vedder has said, is a song about first relationships. Be that as it may, Vedder has written a song about a failed relationship that is succinct without being maudlin, using imagery such as clouds, broken glass, and children playing. Vedder's vocals convey anger and hurt and sorrow with each breath, while the band keeps the music low key, but rises when Vedder's anger or hurt or sorrow rises, and follows his emotions concordantly throughout. One of the things I noticed when listening to it this week in prep for this piece (other than how much I still really fucking love the song) is that there are very few rock and roll singers who can do as much with grunts such as ooh, ah, and uh as Eddie Vedder--it almost amazed me what can be done with a single syllable to capture a person's emotions. The song closes with some doot doot doos (the lyrics say they're too doo doos, but it doesn't sound like that to me) somewhat reminiscent of the Stones "Sympathy for the Devil" which only adds to the spinning and swirling in one's head and one's gut at the time one realizes that a love is lost forever. In the end, "Black" is a song not only about the bleakness today of a relationship's end, but also how it can also darken one's future in that life may well go on, but one's perception of it will never be the same.
Lyric Sheet: "I know someday you'll have a beautiful life/I know you'll be a star in somebody else's sky/But why, why, why can't it be, can't it be mine?"
Enjoy:
Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee
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