Song of the Moment: Sirens

[stip]

I just posted this in the l-bolt thread but since it is likely to get overwhelmed by a sea of dogs (as it should) I'm gonna post it here too.

Anyways, I happen to be in the "I don't like Sirens crowd." I don't like the music. I'm not sure what everyone thinks is so great about Ed's vocal take on it; It sounds strained and almost unpleasant to me. The sentiment/message is something I can't relate to at all, and it doesn't do a good job of making me want to feel any empathy for the protagonist in the song. Wishlist is pretty mundane, but I can relate to the simple longing of it, and the sweetness and simplicity of the track make it work for me when I'm in the right mood. The pain and confusion of the protagonist in Light Years pulls me in by my heartstrings and sucks me into his plight. Parachutes has what amounts to some interesting/unique melodic/vocal approaches (by Pearl Jam standards) that transcend my lack of any connection to what the narrator is singing about. Sirens doesn't have a single one of those things for me. Maybe someday I'll feel differently about the sentiment because either a. I'll be able to relate to it or b. Someone will frame it in a way that allows me to at least empathize with it, but short of one of those two things, I don't see myself ever liking this song.

Obviously you may just never like the song. I know it took a few listens for me to approach it the right way, and to sort of get under my superficial but still real resistance to the song. Actually I think that ESPN bit probably speaks volumes for what's powerful about that song--what it says about how tenuous our happiness is. How fragile, precious, and even arbitrary it can be. And if you're fortunate enough to have something you really wanted to last forever, and then have to confront the reality that you can't, and that you will lose it, that will be very powerful.

The lyrics have some clunky moments. There are places where this song could use an editor. But there are also more than a few moments that really capture that feeling. Its made even more powerful by the fact that Eddie is singing it since for so many people his voice, when it's on, makes the world seem realer, makes true things seem truer. It is taking a powerful emotion and heightening it. In the context of the catalog (this was an insight from the Gleason piece) it is perhaps even more moving because it's being sung by someone you know always wanted to feel this way, and finally does. Contrast it with something like the end of Breath. This is the place he was looking for. How lucky he is that he has it. How unfair that he can't keep it. The scenes of Gleason and his son were a really visceral reminder of this.

Of course this does not necessarily explain the musical choices. I think in some respects the familiarity of the music, the way it is grounded in a style that has a reach that usually goes pretty far beyond what Pearl Jam is reaching for in terms of the target audience and how it aims to touch them, makes a lot of sense for this song. It heightens the message because it is so easy, takes no real steps to alienate, doesn't make you work for anything. It draws attention to the message and meaning, and makes it easy to take in. A more traditional pearl jam format would have made the song more private in a way. Something easier for the more narrow fan community to accept, perhaps, but I think this is a song that aims to reach beyond that.


None of this may make the music any better for you. But Sirens is a song I came to really like despite being quite reluctant to like it. I think this explains both why I do and why I was so reluctant to admit it.

[mastaflatch]

that's a nice post. the Gleason vid was pretty heart-wrenching.

[dkfan9]

i don't really like this song.

Just the overall style or are there specific parts you don't like?

overall style. it's like taking the worst parts of backspacer and making a song out of them. the vocals grind on me, the music is no good. the vocals really bother me.

but what about the vocals?

They grind on and bother him

oh, thanks.

well, i also just am not a fan of them

[Lament]

In that case, I will post my reply to your post in this thread for the same reason...

what's powerful about that song--what it says about how tenuous our happiness is. How fragile, precious, and even arbitrary it can be. And if you're fortunate enough to have something you really wanted to last forever, and then have to confront the reality that you can't, and that you will lose it, that will be very powerful.

Yeah, this is a sentiment I have no real connection to. I'm sure people with kids/wives/husbands/families can get on board with something like this very easily, and for that reason it doesn't seem strange to me that so many people are so overwhelmingly drawn to it. But like I said in my earlier post, I have no real connection to the sentiment of Light Years either, yet between the music being more interesting/engaging/evocative and the lyrics creating a much more real, accessible world I find myself moved by the track. Hell, I really have no true connection to the sentiment of Long Road, but because every single thing about it is so perfectly done I find myself drawn to and empathizing with the protagonist to the point that every time I hear the song there's a real chance it will reduce me to an emotional wreck.

[stip]

Light years turns me off because I find the music ends up alienating the sentiment. I don't feel that way for Sirens, but I totally get why people could end up feeling it is contrived or unappealing. It isn't offering much more then the sentiment, honestly and authentically felt. Long Road (good example), another song I think is moving but can't relate to personally, does a better job creating the space for you if you aren't already there. I don't know that Sirens tries to draw you in the same way. Maybe you're just there or you're not. So I may end up feeling a bit more moved by sirens these days than long road, even though long road is probably the better song.

One of the things I think sirens does which is interesting is situate the song in the present worrying about a future loss. The real emotional weight of the song comes from the relief that everything is okay now but it won't always be. And to be honest I think that's a much harder sentiment to explore than existing loss (light years or long road)

[Lament]

One of the things I think sirens does which is interesting is situate the song in the present worrying about a future loss. The real emotional weight of the song comes from the relief that everything is okay now but it won't always be. And to be honest I think that's a much harder sentiment to explore than existing loss (light years or long road)

This very well may be true, but it still doesn't change the fact that for me (and from what I can gather, for others as well) it fails to build that bridge to make any of the sentiment feel like it matters to someone who can't draw a parallel between themselves and the narrator. Alive is another great example of this. The protagonist in that song is in the middle of a situation that is as completely foreign to me as anything in the world, but the song pulls me in and makes me feel like I'm right there with him. I'm moved and captivated by what's going on. Sirens just doesn't accomplish that for me. That's one of my problems with latter day Pearl Jam; I feel like the songs are "good enough" if you can make a really obvious connection to them, but otherwise just kinda exist there. At the strength of their powers, Pearl Jam's best material demanded your empathy and emotional participation, even if the sentiment/message was completely foreign to you.

[stip]

One of the things I think sirens does which is interesting is situate the song in the present worrying about a future loss. The real emotional weight of the song comes from the relief that everything is okay now but it won't always be. And to be honest I think that's a much harder sentiment to explore than existing loss (light years or long road)

This very well may be true, but it still doesn't change the fact that for me (and from what I can gather, for others as well) it fails to build that bridge to make any of the sentiment feel like it matters to someone who can't draw a parallel between themselves and the narrator. Alive is another great example of this. The protagonist in that song is in the middle of a situation that is as completely foreign to me as anything in the world, but the song pulls me in and makes me feel like I'm right there with him. I'm moved and captivated by what's going on. Sirens just doesn't accomplish that for me. That's one of my problems with latter day Pearl Jam; I feel like the songs are "good enough" if you can make a really obvious connection to them, but otherwise just kinda exist there. At the strength of their powers, Pearl Jam's best material demanded your empathy and emotional participation, even if the sentiment/message was completely foreign to you.

oh i agree. I really like this song but it's not some of their best material for precisely that reason. If you need to really relate to the song to feel it your personal experience of the song could be quite powerful, but that is a mark against the song. When i played this for two non pearl jam fan friends the one with kids loved the song and the one without thought 'eh',

[Lament]

oh i agree. I really like this song but it's not some of their best material for precisely that reason. If you need to really relate to the song to feel it your personal experience of the song could be quite powerful, but that is a mark against the song. When i played this for two non pearl jam fan friends the one with kids loved the song and the one without thought 'eh',

I'm glad I could convince someone of where some of us Sirens "haters" (and honestly, my feelings towards it are more akin to your friend's "eh" than a legitimate hatred) are coming from. It's been very easy for those who like it to just dismiss us as being "hipsters" or disliking it for the sake of disliking it. It was nice to actually state our (or some of our) case.

[stip]

it's an unusual song. There is more to it than just the sentiment. Liking the sentiment explains why you would like the song, but hardly guarantees that you will. So there's something very powerful in the execution, yet curiously private in that it doesn't work too hard to bring in people who aren't already there.

In that respect it's oddly akin to some of the anti-bush screeds/political songs from the Bush era. The target is so big, and so immediate, and so pasionatley felt that some of the work you might need to do to bring in someone who doesn't start from the same place just doesn't get done.

[Lament]

In that respect it's oddly akin to some of the anti-bush screeds/political songs from the Bush era. The target is so big, and so immediate, and so pasionatley felt that some of the work you might need to do to bring in someone who doesn't start from the same place just doesn't get done.

That's a really good parallel to draw, and one I can get on board with. I was very receptive to the aforementioned anti-Bush screeds/political songs, so it was not hard for me to get something of value out of them. At the same time, I was still a discerning enough listener to realize that they weren't done in a way that left much room for someone who wasn't ready to embrace the sentiment with open arms to inhabit. I'm also reminded of some of the comments you made about Thumbing My Way in the past. Thumbing My Way is an essential piece for me, but I'm also prone to constant depression and lingering bouts of pretty deep despair. It speaks a language I'm very familiar with and expresses feelings that fit like a worn in pair of jeans. While I do think there is a beauty to the song outside of the sentiment, and that it does leave a fair amount of room for those who don't know the feelings he's speaking of first hand, I also can see why someone who didn't have an "entryway" into the song so-to-speak could possibly find it to be a rather boring, inconsequential piece of music.

[mastaflatch]

tl;dr

[Lament]

tl;dr

Sirens is a song by Pearl Jam.

[mastaflatch]

tl;dr

Sirens is a song by Pearl Jam.

Thanks!

[stip]

to save bandwith and time we're thinking of having Lament summarizing every thread, and then just locking them.

[harmless]

i don't really like this song.

Just the overall style or are there specific parts you don't like?

overall style. it's like taking the worst parts of backspacer and making a song out of them. the vocals grind on me, the music is no good. the vocals really bother me.

Come on. If you don't like the song, there are other, far more immediately obvious things to say about it than this. The song has very little in common with Backspacer at all.

[harmless]

I'm gonna try and write about why I really like this song at some point, but at the moment I can't see exactly how to put all that into words, and I don't want to be as ham-fisted as Eddie Vedder.

[stip]

i don't really like this song.

Just the overall style or are there specific parts you don't like?

overall style. it's like taking the worst parts of backspacer and making a song out of them. the vocals grind on me, the music is no good. the vocals really bother me.

Come on. If you don't like the song, there are other, far more immediately obvious things to say about it than this. The song has very little in common with Backspacer at all.

yeah, other than using backspacer as shorthand for 'stuff I don't like' I'm not sure where that connection comes from.

[McParadigm]

It's not an illogical statement, it just might not be a sonic comparison.

Whatever core philosophies existed on Backspace that made it such a jump away from previous Pearl Jam albums, they all seem to be very at home in Sirens. That's very different from saying it sounds like a Backspacer track, but it still has communicative value when trying to express your thoughts about the song...It could, for example, mean "whatever shifting aesthetic or sonic values system that album established from the preceding 18 years, Sirens moves even further in the same direction."

[Release_Me]

The 'shifting aesthetics that Backspacer established' relative to their previous work is subjective in itself. And to say that Sirens takes it further in the same direction is even more so.

[harmless]

I can understand it being someone's perception, but I only find it partly true. While this song does share a somewhat commercial gloss, an immediacy, with Backspacer, I still find it easier to connect it with various elements I enjoyed about Pearl Jam before that album, and it's not nearly as "light" in its intent. There's more depth here. So much of Backspacer felt far more alien in terms of "being Pearl Jam" than this song does.