Setting Sun

[MattA75]

PJ Radio played the recording of this song from the first night of the tour this morning on my way into work and it was fucking spectacular

[VinylGuy]

was really struck by ‘if it’s not okay then I guess it aint the end’ this morning

yeah this line is a fav from the album.

its really wonderful

[Clem Halibut]

PJ Radio played the recording of this song from the first night of the tour this morning on my way into work and it was fucking spectacular

Yes! This one sounds awesome live
Loving the Night 2 version

[Fattie_Vedder]

I have a favor to ask the community: has anyone learned how to play setting sun (the acoustic guitar part) and is able to share that? I have not found any good YouTube videos that break it down to show the intricacies and nuances beyond what basic tabs show. I got the main chords down but not sure of the transitions and the specific picking and strumming patterns (e.g. I picked up that the verse is just G and C, and the outro is Dm C G G/B G, but not sure how to play it exactly the same). Has anyone found any good guides on how to play, or even put one together themselves already?

[Jaeti]

Don't know if this has been mentioned from the previous few shows, but at the start of last night's Setting Sun I think I hear the Waiting For Stevie coda music.

[Fattie_Vedder]

Don't know if this has been mentioned from the previous few shows, but at the start of last night's Setting Sun I think I hear the Waiting For Stevie coda music.

I definitely hear it too.

Also, I’m pretty sure Ed missed a verse in the outro.

[stip]

this hit hard this morning

[Jorge]

My main thing with this song is my brain wants it to be slower

[Buby]

What do we think about the book-ended setting sun lyrics?

Scared of Fear:

I hear the voices calling, hear the voices calling
All around my head, all around my head
Hear the voices calling, oh, again they're calling
All around my head, have I lost my friend?
Is this what we've become? One last setting sun
I'll give, but I can't give up, I'll live, not long enough
To stop these voices calling, stop the voices calling
All around my head, as if you never left

Setting Sun:

May your days be long till kingdom come
May our days be long before kingdom come
May our days be long until kingdom come
We can become one last setting sun
Am I the only one hanging on?
We could become one last setting sun
Or be the sun at the break of dawn
Let us not fade
Let us not fade

In the first song he seems upset about being one last setting sun, while in the last song he seems to beg for it.

My interpretation, if you take the album as an album about a breakup, is in the first song, the breakup is still fresh (maybe ongoing). The narrator is upset about their significant other's self-destructive behavior, the tumultous relationship, he feels like they are just another fading romance (setting sun), and it upsets him. (In fact the first two songs seem to take place in this fiery and raw period, until Wreckage when the narrator fully realizes what he lost and becomes resigned, realizes what he lost, and no longer cares about the anger)

By the end, in Setting Sun, he frames the setting sun metaphor more positively, he would give anything to be together with the other. Even being one last setting sun now is desirable if it means they are together, and maybe he views the metaphor through a different lens, a more positive and romantic one. It's the two of them together, even if they're the last on earth. And maybe they are not a setting sun but a rising one. He refuses to give up "(I wait on the porch hoping someday, I'll be let in
They say in the end everything will be okay
If it's not okay, well then, it ain't the end") believing that if they are not together, then it isn't over yet.

You can choose to interpret it as romantic and hopeful, or you can see it as pathetically desperate and clinging onto somebody who has moved on from him. That is your choice how to see it, and if you sympathize with the narrator or not.

But I do think the first and last songs show a change in his opinion, probably the difference between a breakup that is happening now, and one that is in the past and suddenly none of the fighting seems important at all.

I think "being the setting sun" would be resignation, failure. He's trying to shout down that potential resolution.

right. we can either resign and accept that fate, or rise again and start anew

"let us not fade" tells us which one he prefers

Interesting.
I guess "Kingdom Come" rubbed off on Ed from that hawaiian collab...
Skip to 0:54

[Ms Harmless]

My main thing with this song is my brain wants it to be slower

this is Pearl Jam, never gonna happen

[Farmer John]

I haven't heard them all, but this has got to be the best version yet.

[stip]

asking here as well- does anyone remember where Jeff talked about modeling the SoF ambient intro on the music of setting sun?

[Brett]

asking here as well- does anyone remember where Jeff talked about modeling the SoF ambient intro on the music of setting sun?

I think VinylGuy is right about it being the Broken Records Podcast. I've listened to that, the Howard Stern interview, and the Zane Lowe interview. Of the three, I'm most certain it's the podcast, but I couldn't say exactly when he mentions it.

[Jaeti]

asking here as well- does anyone remember where Jeff talked about modeling the SoF ambient intro on the music of setting sun?

I do not. But I thought he (or someone who heard/read what was said about the song) also said something about the final chords in Setting Sun being the same or being chords that would "naturally lead into" (whatever that means to the musically inclined) the opening chords of Scared of Fear. If true, then between that and the "setting sun" references in each, there's a Finnegan's Wake-ish thing going on structurally.

[WtOB?]

ed keeps going to the sun at the break of dawn line too early though, which is irritating me.

[Ms Harmless]

ed keeps going to the sun at the break of dawn line too early though, which is irritating me.

you mean live?

[VinylGuy]

Im very happy they are closing the shows with this one.

[WtOB?]

ed keeps going to the sun at the break of dawn line too early though, which is irritating me.

you mean live?

yeah live. instead of singing the "am i the only one hanging on?" line at the end there he's often just going straight to the "sun at the break of dawn" line and just singing it twice, which is a small error but one that's bothering me.

[Ms Harmless]

ed keeps going to the sun at the break of dawn line too early though, which is irritating me.

you mean live?

yeah live. instead of singing the "am i the only one hanging on?" line at the end there he's often just going straight to the "sun at the break of dawn" line and just singing it twice, which is a small error but one that's bothering me.

yeah that reduces the impact for sure

[dprival78]

could his hat be affecting his ability to read the prompter somehow?