Eddie Vedder - Earthling

[Strat]

Yea but I still much rather listen to can’t deny me.

[Strat]

Wait. Maybe not. I don’t know. Don’t make me choose

[Chris_H_2]

someone post that goofy blurry pic of ed dancing that jorge posted a couple of times.

[liebzz]

The Haves frames cynically-applied class warfare rhetoric with a love song. Can't Deny Me doesn't even bother to offer that much of a framing. Whatever you want to call that phony "solidarity, brother" junk nestled in Haves, Can't Deny Me offers it up with even purer and more artless distillation (at least the Haves doesn't show up to the protest thunking its cowbell in your face like an asshole and thinking it's entitled to be a fucking rallying cry).

I'll take The Haves in that scenario.

But CDM has the cash register cha-Ching and The Haves offers me sorrow.

[stip]

The Haves frames cynically-applied class warfare rhetoric with a love song. Can't Deny Me doesn't even bother to offer that much of a framing. Whatever you want to call that phony "solidarity, brother" junk nestled in Haves, Can't Deny Me offers it up with even purer and more artless distillation (at least the Haves doesn't show up to the protest thunking its cowbell in your face like an asshole and thinking it's entitled to be a fucking rallying cry).

I'll take The Haves in that scenario.

I don't mind the music in Can't Deny Me, and the way the lines that open the chorus are delivered aren't bad, so I'd take You Can't Deny Me (and again, I think both are better than No More). I just relistened to CDM for the first time in years. It's not a good song, but it's an easy choice over The Haves. But at the same time, why choose?


Both CDM and No More run into the the same problem (in a weird way his schmaltzy work has this same issue but it's not as pronounced). Eddie struggles with hitting big targets he has strong feelings about. His strength as a writer and a performer is his empathy, his humanism, and his ability to appreciate the nuance in human emotions and experiences. When he goes after a huge idea he can't make space for complexity and you get these really one dimensional, trite statements that feel powerful and authentic to him because of the depth of his commitment, but ring false even when you agree. War is bad. Bush is awful. Trump is awful. I love my family. But if he isn't exploring the thing itself, and focuses on its impact on people, you get a totally different song. You get something as subtle and complex as Insignificance instead of No More. War is bad is true, but not a compelling sentiment. But the way war makes its victims feel powerless, diminished, denied control over their own life - that's right in his wheelhouse. Can't Deny Me - the world is bad and protest is good and the song is boring, and then just a year later you get 7 Oclock, which deals with a pretty similar topic but instead of posturing it interrogates his own culpability for the way the world is and his responsibility to do something about it and the writing is dramatically better.

The lyrics on Gigaton, generally, are excellent, and that's because it's a record without certainty (and that's the source of Eddie's empathy), and so the songs live in that unsettled space where there are questions without satisfying answers. Eddie writes (and performs) well when he is seeking and exploring and not really judging despite his commitments (his humanism). There aren't many people (even still) who capture that as well as he does when you fuse the lyrics and the performance. Less so when he shares what he had to find. That's when his writing moves from powerful, and sometimes profound, to glib and self-satisfied.

[Jorge]

The music in both songs are bad. The music in "The Haves" is worse.

The lyrics to both songs are bad. The lyrics in "The Haves" are worse.

Ed's performance in both songs is... well, he actually sounds reasonably good in "Can't Deny Me". At least the verses

"Can't Deny Me" wins

[Strat]

im not saying i actually like it, but Can't Deny Me was a heck of a lot better actually hearing it live. Its the biggest reason I was so fucking happy that BoB ended up not producing the album. hearing it live revealed somewhat more interesting guitar work that is completely buried in the recording.

[Jorge]

"Why don't you know that I know
When you're hurting after all these years, I know
Like Siamese twins
I can feel every one of your senses
We're just the same
Unconditional love, easier said
Said than done"

Come on. If you want to focus on the lyrics and make that the only prism through which you judge the songs, okay, then look at the execution rather than just motioning vaguely at the sentiment. This is trash

[Strat]

Please calm down, jorge. LIterally nobody here likes the song

[Jorge]

[evenslow]

I don't want to go back and listen but isn't the bridge to CDM just Eddie doing a tepid schoolyard chant of "You can't deny me."

???

If I'm remembering correctly that is the nadir of PJ and EV, hands down.

[Jorge]

That's true. Fuck

[BurtReynolds]

I don't want to think about this.

[stip]

cant deny me is improved by gigaton. It is simply allowed to exist as a sub par song, rather than the present and future of the band

[Jorge]

There is one chord in "The Haves" that I like. It's like the one inspired change in the song. It's right after "it's so easy to be wanting"

[evenslow]

there was really a 2-year period where i thought a) Can't Deny Me signified the forever downturn of PJ and b) it would more than likely end up on their next album, thereby ruining it.

i thank christ those two morbid thoughts didn't come true.

[evenslow]

Also, it might go down in history as the last thing BoB did with PJ.

Ignominious.

[Thurman Murman]

Can't Deny Me is THE low point in Pearl Jam's career. Coming 5 years after their most disappointing album and kind of billed as the lead single for the new album.

[Thurman Murman]

there was really a 2-year period where i thought a) Can't Deny Me signified the forever downturn of PJ and b) it would more than likely end up on their next album, thereby ruining it.

i thank christ those two morbid thoughts didn't come true.

I read this after my last post...but yeah i agree 100%. CDM is mostly responsible for the low expectations i had going into Gigaton. Thank god i couldn't have been more wrong.

[Strat]

Can't Deny Me is THE low point in Pearl Jam's career. Coming 5 years after their most disappointing album and kind of billed as the lead single for the new album.

yea, framing it like this....i agree.

The Haves is fine in comparison. Ultimately, im glad Ed is happy and sappy. CDM was a very weak attempt at.....shit. So much.

Sweet Lew is gold though