41. Alright vs. Soon Forget vs. Seven Oclock

[ABNorman]

Alright was knocked out in the second round by Corduroy (the eventual winner) last year.

Soon Forget has made the second round once, by beating Red Dot

Seven O'Clock narrowly lost out to Comes Then Goes in the second round last year.

[stip]

I love wordiness, at least in Pearl Jam. In part that's because i'm generally happy when Eddie is in frame, but he's also a talented enough singer (melodist?) that they flow pretty gracefully (or interestingly) through the song. And his wordier songs are usually well written.

[epilogue]

Soon Forget has FOUR votes??!!

I'm one of them. I feel like I'm in a pretty affectionate place toward PJ in general right now, and I still don't really like "Alright" at all, and I have mixed feelings about "Seven O'Clock." There are parts of it I really like, and other parts that really don't work for me. (I mean, if there's one thing I hate, it's wordiness!)

"Soon Forget" is no great achievement (though I do think the chords and melody of the song are strong, and are kind of downplayed by the presentation of the song), but it's part of my lifetime PJ saga in a way that these others two just aren't.

Kevin Davis is such a good writer that now it has six!

[liebzz]

Soon Forget is one I think sits in a novel place and time. At that moment, that was the first time we heard Eddie with a ukulele, and it’s mirror imagining to The Who Blue, Red and Grey was sort of played up and it had a charm to it. It showed that Eddie had some semblance of a sense of humor on record. It had a lot of things going for it as a little ditty.

I don’t think it holds up really though against a song as sweeping and powerful as Seven O’Clock, which is the perfect example of Pearl Jam playing just enough out of the box and giving us the familiar simultaneously- both interesting and sitting in their modern wheelhouse.

[epilogue]

But you like SF more than Alright?

[Strat]

Seven O Clock is fantastic even though its pretty damn similar to More News from Nowhere by Nick Cave!

[Kevin Davis]

I listened to Gigaton this morning (it had been a while) and feel reinforced in my choice to vote for "Soon Forget," which really surprises me would be the one song in this match that one would single out for having bad lyrics. I concede Eddie's use of the word "horny" is uncomfortable. But other than that, the lyrics are fine (sometimes even funny!), in line with what the song is trying to do, and the lightweight presentation -- as well as what its placement on Binaural indicates about the burden of importance the song is supposed to bear -- is 100% spot on for a soapboxy cautionary tale about the dangers of materialism. Sure, it's kind of high and mighty and pompous, but it presumes all the artistic significance of a nursery rhyme. And on top of that, those lyrcs ride a really pretty well-crafted, nuanced melody -- one thing I love about Ed's uke songs is that the instrument seems to push him toward harmonic spaces and little dissonances that he doesn't often find on the guitar, and not unlike "In Hiding," it takes some of the pressure off the lyrics. While I acknowledge its limitations, I just like the basic musical DNA of this tune.

"Seven O'Clock" is a song I just must not understand -- it's a mystery to me how this could register as anything other than a barrage of touchy-feely cliches, in a song that rolls out the red carpet for them as if they were a Homerian epic. That whole first verse of Eddie personifying his "despondency," and having this internal dialogue about whether to "kill" it -- blech. How this rings genuine to someone who thinks "Off He Goes" -- which at least allows for some interpretive flexibility -- is too self-absorbed, I do not understand. Trapping a butterfly, clipping its wings, etc. etc. -- this is cliche city, and the song puts it all front and center with very little melodic variation. It's clear Eddie is going for a sort of spitfire Springsteen "Blinded by the Light"-type effect, but there's no striking imagery, none of that sense that the singer has all these brilliant scenes in his mind that he just can't stop unleashing until he gets them all out. Eddie has written a lot of lyrics I like, usually in conjunction with his specific mode of delivery, but he is not this type of writer.

Which is a shame, because I love everything else about this song -- I love the sonic space it lives in, I love the general groove/pulse of it, I love the "chorus" parts and really love the bridge, and some of the instrumental accents are just lovely. But man, I don't know that there is another Pearl Jam song where I have to push so hard to get past the parts I don't like to get to the parts that I do. In a lot of ways I find this way more frustrsting than a song that just doesn't land for me, like "Alright."

[Kevin Davis]

Seven O Clock is fantastic even though its pretty damn similar to More News from Nowhere by Nick Cave!

I wish I liked "Seven O'Clock" as much as "More News From Nowhere!"

[stip]

I listened to Gigaton this morning (it had been a while) and feel reinforced in my choice to vote for "Soon Forget," which really surprises me would be the one song in this match that one would single out for having bad lyrics. I concede Eddie's use of the word "horny" is uncomfortable. But other than that, the lyrics are fine (sometimes even funny!), in line with what the song is trying to do, and the lightweight presentation -- as well as what its placement on Binaural indicates about the burden of importance the song is supposed to bear -- is 100% spot on for a soapboxy cautionary tale about the dangers of materialism. Sure, it's kind of high and mighty and pompous, but it presumes all the artistic significance of a nursery rhyme. And on top of that, those lyrcs ride a really pretty well-crafted, nuanced melody -- one thing I love about Ed's uke songs is that the instrument seems to push him toward harmonic spaces and little dissonances that he doesn't often find on the guitar, and not unlike "In Hiding," it takes some of the pressure off the lyrics. While I acknowledge its limitations, I just like the basic musical DNA of this tune.

"Seven O'Clock" is a song I just must not understand -- it's a mystery to me how this could register as anything other than a barrage of touchy-feely cliches, in a song that rolls out the red carpet for them as if they were a Homerian epic. That whole first verse of Eddie personifying his "despondency," and having this internal dialogue about whether to "kill" it -- blech. How this rings genuine to someone who thinks "Off He Goes" -- which at least allows for some interpretive flexibility -- is too self-absorbed, I do not understand. Trapping a butterfly, clipping its wings, etc. etc. -- this is cliche city, and the song puts it all front and center with very little melodic variation. It's clear Eddie is going for a sort of spitfire Springsteen "Blinded by the Light"-type effect, but there's no striking imagery, none of that sense that the singer has all these brilliant scenes in his mind that he just can't stop unleashing until he gets them all out. Eddie has written a lot of lyrics I like, usually in conjunction with his specific mode of delivery, but he is not this type of writer.

Which is a shame, because I love everything else about this song -- I love the sonic space it lives in, I love the general groove/pulse of it, I love the "chorus" parts and really love the bridge, and some of the instrumental accents are just lovely. But man, I don't know that there is another Pearl Jam song where I have to push so hard to get past the parts I don't like to get to the parts that I do. In a lot of ways I find this way more frustrsting than a song that just doesn't land for me, like "Alright."

well at least me have mind your manners. I love that butterfly verse, especially the melody

[Anders]

Alright I think. Don’t love any of these.

[epilogue]

I would vote for Soon Forget over Parting Ways.

[Farmer John]

I would vote for Soon Forget over Parting Ways.

You're breaking my heart

[epilogue]

I would vote for Soon Forget over Parting Ways.

You're breaking my heart

It'll be Alright.

[Farmer John]

I would vote for Soon Forget over Parting Ways.

You're breaking my heart

It'll be Alright.

Even if I'm a disappointment in my own home?

[tragabigzanda]

I would vote for Soon Forget over Parting Ways.

You're breaking my heart

It'll be Alright.

Even if I'm a disappointment in my own home?

can confirm it's fine

[E.H. Ruddock]

Alright is the best one of the three

[Leatherhead]

The two first lines of the butterfly verse may sound a little cliche, but then you got "Still alive like a passer-by overdosed on gamma rays." Love that one.