injuddstree wrote:Upper Hand sounds absolutely fucking amazing on the official boot. Just wow.
Actually just came here to post the same. This one took me a bit longer to warm up to than the other high end DM songs but its right up there at the top now. Kills live!
Also just noticed that my initial ranking was 4 stars....up to 5 now.
guitar_davey wrote:This one moves me like very few songs I've ever heard by anyone.
That intro is perfect -- the fake out to half-time is incredible. The lyrics are beautiful. The build to the outro is exhilarating.
Five stars. Instant classic.
The live concert experience is one of the most special in our lives. Clearly it was for Ed before he was in Pearl Jam and the care of it has driven so many of his decisions, but very rarely is it sung about. One thing I've enjoyed about the Grateful Dead, MMJ and Widespread Panic is that, just like writing about love and loss, they put the concert in it's elevated position by singing about it from time to time.
If I only could listen to 10 PJ songs for the rest of my life, this is one of them. I love it so much.
My read is not as complex.
It’s one life partner to another or his family- I picture a man addressing his wife and kids (daughters here since I think this is Ed, not a fictional hypothetical) - and he’s near death. It’s been a life lived (filled the pages) that was often great(painted some) though he might be the only one who ever looks back on it (May not be read by anyone or anyone but me).
Chorus: He hopes the people at his funeral or simply remembering him are smiling about his life, and while he won’t be there, he still hopes the rest of the lives of the people he loved will be grand. He’s sorry about the timing of his death - that line actually fucking kills me. When is it ever a good time to lose a spouse or a parent? And finally, one thing he’s never had in any aspect of his life is the upper hand, and here it is death who is the last hand on top of the bat (I literally picture the game of hands going up a bat and the one on top winning).
The entire second verse seems to be about going into death (fading out) alone (lonely silhouette on the horizon). What’s next is uncertain (the lines are blurry).
In the second chorus one line changes (I always wanted to be like one of them) and I think this is an admission that he wasn’t always smiling. Maybe rarely smiling. He wishes he could have been like that, but he maybe knew too much to be ignorantly blissful. I’ve always wished I was more appreciative and focused on positives myself so this hits close to home.
Carry me home I see literally as pallbearers (Just need a few of you) taking him to his final resting place and/or figuratively others who have passed to his spiritual resting place. Maybe just the two of you could be his daughters if the wife has passed.
BUT I’m a twat. I also always picture dissident about a mother who had a baby (nursed him there over a night) but ultimately decided to give it up for adoption (sold him to the state), and it affected her for the rest of her life - Escape is never the safest path.
PS. These songs that feel like narratives - Dissident, Upper Hand, Sleight of Hand, Force of Nature, etc. - are always my favorites.
I tend to not like (as much) pearl jam songd that are overly narraitivzed. or at least i need to ignore the narrative. i prefer ideas and experiences to stories, at least for eddie’s writing. but this is one of those songs where Eddie’s lyrics really lend themselves to a lot of different interpretations, and pretty much all of them (including DTs) work well for the song
My read is that you can’t have an upper hand without a lower hand, so this is song is either about (a) someone with uneven arm lengths, or (b) Goro from Mortal Kombat.
It may end up a all timer for me. It is trending that way.
I find the choice of no bridge and only 2 verses and two chorus odd, and not in a bad way. It definitely has room to reathe. It reminds me of Wish you Were here in that way. I hope this doesn't get skipped when I see them live.
Tj wrote:It may end up a all timer for me. It is trending that way.
I find the choice of no bridge and only 2 verses and two chorus odd, and not in a bad way. It definitely has room to reathe. It reminds me of Wish you Were here in that way. I hope this doesn't get skipped when I see them live.
there are like 6 pink floyd songs this reminds me of, this wasn't on the list. now it is lol.
is the outro the same as the intro? i was watching it live and it looked like ed was playing the same thing during the intro and the outro. the rest of the band is obviously doing different stuff.
I love the "funeral" interpretation.. though I'm sure there are others I could get behind.
One thing I've struggled with is what has happened that gave him the upper hand? I mean, we're at this funeral and he's never had the upper hand but now that he's passed he does? I'm not sure how to interpret that part.
This one is usually #2 on the album for me (Stevie and Won't Tell trade back and forth at #1 and #3).
I really, really want to hear this one in some order with MotH, Immortality, Alive, Comeback.. the PJ funeral playlist is fire!
Oversize wrote:One thing I've struggled with is what has happened that gave him the upper hand? I mean, we're at this funeral and he's never had the upper hand but now that he's passed he does? I'm not sure how to interpret that part.
Dont interpret the line “I apologize. So sorry about the timing…but one thing I never had was the upper hand” to mean “right now I have the upper hand”
It’s an expression of empathy for whoever is left behind. As in, “sorry to be doing this to you, at this particular point in time. I wouldn’t be if I had the choice.”
