Song of the Moment: Mind Your Manners

[Heathen]

there are people who love seat belts?

[ItsOkay]

Overall I like the feel of the video and makes me more excited for the album. I'm just surprised by the dated references to the "pending" American apocalypse sung about: Vienam-style armies, atomic bombs, nuclear power plant. I guess it seems in line with the rest of the video: the PSA announcement, the old-school TV.

But why the references to images from the 30-60 years ago?

Wouldn't the aggression and frustration with the current make-up/direction of America in MYM be better accomplished with more current images?
-instead of bombs dropping drones flying
-the Statue of Liberty with eyes looking over the people (NSA-style) instead of gas-mask on.
-images of rampant unemployment
-or something else

Maybe I've just grown tired of the cliched enemies, or enemies portrayed in cliches: war, oil, money.

they are archetypal images at this point which is probably why they were used. That or being lazy. Your point is still a good one. As far as the unemployment stuff goes, like I said elsewhere not every song can be about everything. S/T split WWS and Unemployable up into two songs. Binaural had Insignificance and Sleight of Hand.

I think the larger concerns in this one were war and environmental collapse, two issues that are easier to tie up into millennial thinking. I saw the gas mask on the Statue of Liberty as a polluted air thing, not a WWI gasing, although again the archetypal image makes it more striking

Great write up for the front page! I agree about the their use as archetypal, and good point that the song doesn't/shouldn't address all issues. My opinion would just be the archetypal images of war and oil could have once been provocative, but now feel more shallow or too simple: war=bad, pollution=bad, environment=good.

A few years ago those images would have tied together a collage of ideas: the presidency, greed to the detriment of society, abuse of power, control of government by rich elitists, the Iraq and Afghan wars, etc, all tied together because Bush was identified with war and oil. Now the images don't evoke all those connections, at least to me.

If I solely had the video I would be dissapointed because of the lack of nuance and development about the frustration of current society and government. The video itself with its style, silhouettes and lightning bolt would be still be great. But, MYM the song communicates the frustration very well.

And for something thrown together in a month, I'll take it.

[BurtReynolds]

I meant Ralph Nader a la 2008: old man preaching a tired but probably true message that everyone ignores.

[Heathen]

MYM is more general social/political commentary in the vein of DTE or Grievance rather than the specific stuff targeting Bush that you'd find on Riot Act and S/T. It's condemning the United States for sure (which would imply a shot at Obama, since he is president), but not Obama by name. Maybe it's because he doesn't want to harm obama (lets see what's said on tour this year, if anything), but Obama has been challenging to the psychology of the mainstream left. It was easy to assume that everything the left hated during the Bush years was because of Bush, and so blaming Bush makes sense. Get rid of bush, fix the problem. But if the same problems survive across two presidencies headed by two seemingly very different people than they become far more structural in nature, and so railing about a president kind of misses the point. What Obama taught a lot of people is that while who is president certainly matters, the issue runs into the core of how America functions.

If you ever get bored of teaching, I think you have a great future as a spin doctor.

They just played a short bit of that song on TV. I felt like sharing this with you guys.

[Mine]

I've talked about this ad infinitum on this board and the old one, but someone has to release your records, and when your boycott fails and one venue controls access to the places you want to play it is not hypocrisy to understand that you have to deal, and instead try and make deals on your own terms.

In theory they could have bought they way out of their contract with Epic and play to 117 people audiences in some local clubs. However i think that would have been moronic.

Also Epic and later Sony music, J Records that distributed s/t included, are far bigger corporations than Target.

There is some odd calculus here that says that distributing through EVERY major possible retail corporation is somehow more anti-corporate than using one.

It sounds like people feel betrayed by the band.
It's funny how things like this get blown out of proportion. The model wife issue isn't much different.

[Lounge Lizard]

I dont want to interrupt your political debate but MYM has me very optimistic about record number ten. Very optimistic indeed.

[HardTI]

I dont want to interrupt your political debate but MYM has me very optimistic about record number ten. Very optimistic indeed.

Right there with ya. I haven't been this excited for a PJ album since Yield.

[harmless]

Just a thing, a general response to those saying MYM seems like a too vague rant against America now that Bush is out: 1) Manners are values; this song doesnt just criticise politicians, or war. It takes a jab at the American values which inadvertently defend and support the status quo. There is no single target, and Ed isn't being unfocused as much as more nuanced. 2) The wars arent over just because Bush has gone. And before he was there, Ed wrote Glorified G, DTE, Whipping, Brain of J, and more, all of which could be called vague and unfocused. but they're not.

[BurtReynolds]

Personally, I think this stuff works better when its not specific.

[stupidmop]

They should have just gone with ed doing weird interpretive dance by himself in silhouette for the whole thing.

[Lament]

"Pearl Jam" is trending on twitter at the moment, so apparently the video is creating more of a buzz than I would have thought.

[verb_to_trust]

How is the review of the video on the front page longer than one paragraph? Do we really think this was some sort of statement? Or even particularly well thought out?

[Lounge Lizard]

How is the review of the video on the front page longer than one paragraph? Do we really think this was some sort of statement? Or even particularly well thought out?

Imagine that

[verb_to_trust]

How is the review of the video on the front page longer than one paragraph? Do we really think this was some sort of statement? Or even particularly well thought out?

Imagine that

[evenslow]

Hey look guys verb_to_trust is here with the stone tablets from the mount again.

[verb_to_trust]

I don't get it

[harmless]

Was the cynicism it took to ask that question well thought out, verb?

[verb_to_trust]

Was the cynicism it took to ask that question well thought out, verb?

not particularly

[Birds in Hell]

I liked it, certainly a lot more than any of the videos from the last two records.

[verb_to_trust]

Yeah it was okay. I was just a little flummoxed by the rambling on the front page...