But yeah no seriously. I'm not gonna talk about that song in this thread. Not after everything that's already happened. I need time to heal. But I'll read everyone else's thoughts. And I'll gladly rank whatever we start ranking as soon as the discussion inevitably devolves into the old familiar territory.
durdencommatyler wrote:Yeah, how ever we want to classify the song, I think it's a tremendously successful song and hits me right in the juniper sweets.
For what it's worth, I really was trying to make a case for the potential artistry of the power ballad, not damn "Sirens" with faint praise. The Def Leps and Bon Jovis of the world long ago left their mark on my tastes.
durdencommatyler wrote:Yeah, how ever we want to classify the song, I think it's a tremendously successful song and hits me right in the juniper sweets.
For what it's worth, I really was trying to make a case for the potential artistry of the power ballad, not damn "Sirens" with faint praise. The Def Leps and Bon Jovis of the world long ago left their mark on my tastes.
I totally got that from your posts. I just think because I'm bad at categorizing and labeling music I never thought of Sirens as a Power Ballad. Regardless of one's opinions of the quality of the sub-set. So I was just trying to figure out how others defined the term and why (or why not) Sirens applied.
Sirens is what happens when a song writer gets stoned and drinks red wine, and listens to Cheap Trick's The Flame and Garth Brook's The Dance in the same night.
Tj wrote:Sirens is what happens when a song writer gets stoned and drinks red wine, and listens to Cheap Trick's The Flame and Garth Brook's The Dance in the same night.
Or Don Henley's New York Minute. Don Henley sings about hearing sirens in the night too.
What most people miss about modern Pearl Jam is they under the control of agent 532. A force control agent for the illuminati, also known as Boom. They now work for the lizard people. Ed heroically has hidden secret messages to the commoners I am convinced he is tangled in battle of good verses evil. With the Tenclub as his army he will defeat the illuminati from with in.
What most people miss about modern Pearl Jam is they are under the control of agent 532. A force control agent for the illuminati, also known as Boom. They now work for the lizard people. Ed heroically has hidden secret messages to the commoners. I am convinced he is tangled in battle of good verses evil. With the Tenclub as his army he will defeat the illuminati from with in.
If Sirens is the heart, the emotional and thematic core of the album, Lightning Bolt is the blood pumping through it. It’s a celebration of the realization that life is full of people and things (family, music, art, whatever) that inspire, challenge, and reward us as long as we open ourselves up to and embrace them as something elemental and fleeting. It shouts what Sirens was only able to whisper by accepting that the things that really matter to us are at least in part beyond our control, and if we fixate too much on the fear of loss we’ll lose the moments that we do have.
As a piece of musical craft it’s an extremely accomplished, underrated (I think) piece of song writing, despite a number of flaws. It’s hampered by an introduction that requires a bit more subtlety, a chorus that’s a bit too obvious, the hideously terrible decision to cut the song off at the start of what should be an extended climax. The sterile production on Lightning Bolt also does this song no favors. Like Swallowed Whole, this is an outdoor song that needs to convey a much grander sense of space then it does. Lightning Bolt sounds huge, but somehow constrained, like a wild animal in too small a cage. It also may just feel a bit too familiar. Eddie has been trying to write this song for a while, though this is his best attempt yet.
The song starts with Eddie playing the latest variation of his palm muted guitar intro, the notes meant to shiver up your spine, intimations of something sneaking up behind you, intangible but real and about to take on form. Eddie’s voice compliments the effect, deep, whispered, almost like it’s stalking you, though it’s not exactly a predator/prey relationship. Something closer to your partner running their fingers down your back and breathing in your ear. You tense up, but you’re eager for what comes next. It would be better if it was a bit quieter, but the effect is there.
Lightning Bolt also does a great job playing with our sense of timing and motion. It’s a fast moving song, one that constantly feels like it’s rushing forward, even though the actual speed rarely changes. Halfway through the first verse the song feels like it’s entering into a sprinter’s crouch (Unthought Known plays the same trick—the marvelous sense of anticipation) before exploding into a soaring sequence usually reserved for a chorus or a climax, complete with a huge open drum sound that attempts to swallow the song. Mike’s spacy guitar effects are also a perfect complement—little flashes of inspiration rising up and into the ether. The effect would (again) be more powerful if the start of the song was a bit softer, and it does raise the bar for the rest of the song. If you reach this peak too early where do you go next?
Fortunately the song is full of tricks, maintaining its tremendous pacing by lifting us up and dropping us down without ever actually slowing down. After the over the top hugeness of the verse the chorus curves back down, with large, elastic, descending movements into a buzzsaw made of static that launches into one of Mike’s best pure ‘fuck yeah rock and roll’ mini solos.
There’s a seamless non-transition into a new REM inspired verse that manages to impart the sensation that the song has somehow entered a gentler, contemplative moment while rushing along at the same frenetic pace—with a bit too much adrenalin to be fully breathless. The piano does a wonderfully subtle job of calling to mind the same fingers up the spine feel of the first verse, though here they’re warmer, more welcome—the surprise giving way to an embrace.
The final verse once again calls us back to the first, though this time there’s a sharper, crackling, electric edge to it. Mike’s notes once again ascend off into the air as the whole piece takes on an expansive cinematic quality—vast open spaces, rushing wind, shot through with significance and possibility—all the self confidence that Sirens was lacking, the music rising with Eddie’s frantic energy into a celebratory orgasmic climax, a release of the fears that so easily trap us in prisons of our own making. Mike’s little bursts of drifting inspiration transform into fireworks. We even get a hint of church bells ringing in the background, a wonderful touch that always makes me smile. What’s particularly remarkable about this moment is that it wasn’t preceded by the typical quiet/loud or slow/fast dynamic where the offset in styles helps accentuate the differences. Lightning Bolt basically starts at a gallop and never stops while somehow making the listener feel like the song has peaks and valleys. And then of course the song lingers in that ephinial space as Mike delivers a lovely extended open solo celebrating the moments we’re gifted, and…
God damn it, Brendan.
The music is the real star here. Although the first few verses could use a bit more nuance Eddie comes into his own with the questing sequence after the first chorus and the whole final verse and outro. Then again I’m always a sucker for those moments where Eddie goes for broke. Even if he can’t hit the same notes the passion always comes through, and he does move through the song like someone being battered by a current he can’t fully comprehend, and can’t resist, but can swim with, rising in the process.
Lyrically there are a number of nice moments. The lightning bolt image is decent. A lightning bolt is powerful, unpredictable, illuminating, dangerous, and brief. It’s a perfectly fine metaphor for how inspiration can’t be controlled, captured, or manufactured—how it’s something you simply must be open to (benevolent surrender is a theme that runs through much of the song). And he does stick with natural imagery throughout the song, but it might have been better if he had stuck with one image and ran with it. We have seeds, beaches, waves, animals, birds, lighting. Sticking with one of these themes lets you develop it in interesting ways. But maybe this is by design. It’s a decisively indecisive song, full of commitment to an idea it cannot fully comprehend that can manifest in innumerable ways. But while the Lighting Bolt image works as a metaphor, the actually ‘you gotta know you’ll never let her go/she’s a lighting bolt’ is a bit too direct and heavy handed. You’d hope for something a bit more powerful in a song about inspiration.
The verses are pretty clever though, and too easily dismissed (a legacy of the chorus, perhaps). The image of inspiration as a meteor descending from the heavens—dangerous, destructive, uncaring—is a nice one (and like the lightning bolt come back to the otherworldly theme that is scattered throughout the song). Sand is new territory for him (a natural progression from waves perhaps), but works well here. Sand is formless in itself, taking on the shape of whatever is able to hold it, though not for long. It’s not particularly fertile, but then again these aren’t normal seeds we’re growing either. I like the elements of compulsion in the lyrics—the way you’re forced to dig (whether to reap or to sow isn’t clear), the way you can’t stop, the way in which you cannot control the outcome.
The first verse is active—caught up in the moment of inspiration. The more contemplative second verse finds us outside of that moment, waiting for it happen, wondering if it ever well. It’s a stagnant verse, a writer’s block verse, rueful about those moments where we have nothing new to give, no way to meet other people’s expectations, nothing present to make us want to commit to the world, to each other, to ourselves—how so much of our life is spent waiting for those moments where we come alive. But those moments do come, and the important thing is to make sure we make the most of the opportunity.
The things in life that inspire us are temporary. Life conspires against them. The ocean will always reclaim a castle made of sand (and that’s all we ever have to build with). The people we love won’t be with us forever. The next great idea won’t come when called. But there’s always a new horizon (I love the ‘as her birds fall from the nest flying towards the great northwest’ lyric. Incredibly evocative, especially with the music). We may not always be able to see it, and there’s a playful acceptance of the absurd futility of trying to force it (the final comments about death), but there’s also a profound gratitude for it. There’s no way to systematize or control the things in your life that matter, and you can’t hold onto them forever. But we must celebrate them anyway, despite and perhaps because of this.
