Red Mosquito

dimejinky99 wrote:There's a huge unquantifiable in there. Whereas most other pj songs can e dissected, this one evades it. It's got something no other song has. They caught lightning in a bottle to borrow the phrase.

In a way it's the perfect example of just how strong the synergy of the band is when their powers are at full force. Every single element of the song is pretty average/mundane on its own. If you would've given the skeleton of that song to any other band in the world it probably would have been garbage. But somehow when the five of them perform it the song becomes otherworldly.

Even now. And that's a super rare thing in PJ performances these days.

Why do a few think Hard To IMagine is half baked "compositionally" speaking? Cause of its simplicity? jam off of just two chords? I hope that doesn't mean its half baked. The music, the lyrics and melody do a perfect dance.

Birds in Hell wrote:Oh man, I prefer Of the Earth to Hard to Imagine by some margin.

I can't support this.

Yeah, its not even close really....and I like Of The Earth

Hard to Imagine is okay, don't get me wrong, but it's no Big Wave.

Big Wave is fun in a Little-Mermaid-Under-The-Sea-type way.

Man, Speeno is trooling hard.

Strat wrote:The music, the lyrics and melody do a perfect dance.

Good description. This, at least for me, is what makes the song so tasty.

I hadn't heard Of The Earth for like a year and a half after it debuted. I heard it finally and could not figure out what the appeal was.

I like the way the riff and drums propel it.

Strat wrote:The music, the lyrics and melody do a perfect dance.

You said what I was trying to say far better in one sentence than I did in a whole paragraph. That's a great description.

This song captures so much of what I miss in Pearl Jam's music these days. I miss songs like this, Long Road (I know, a different set of guys, but the same idea), Who You Are, Immortality...songs where the magic and the strength comes more from the PERFORMANCE than the strength of one or two parts that the carry the rest of the song. I mean, Alive is a cool song, but the ingredients that make it so are glaringly obvious. The aforementioned songs have such an enduring, mysterious quality to them. To me that's the difference between a band with great members and a GREAT BAND. Unfortunately I feel like Twenty-First Century Pearl Jam is more about being the former than the latter.

Birds in Hell wrote:Oh man, I prefer Of the Earth to Hard to Imagine by some margin.

again! what's with this agreement, lately?

although I like hard to imagine fine. I do agree with McP and Platy, though

dimejinky99 wrote:

VinylGuy wrote:They should have play it in Lolla, it would have been amazing.

Check the stats. 'Special' songs don't get played at festivals.

Bonnaroo 08 had Hard To Imagine.

Birds in Hell wrote:Oh man, I prefer Of the Earth to Hard to Imagine by some margin.

you're a fool

cutuphalfdead wrote:

dimejinky99 wrote:

VinylGuy wrote:They should have play it in Lolla, it would have been amazing.

Check the stats. 'Special' songs don't get played at festivals.

Bonnaroo 08 had Hard To Imagine.

Bannaroo 08 had a lot of "special" songs.

Hard to Imagine is kind of like Release for me. Fairly unremarkable songs that are really carried by the band's enthusiastic performance, particularly Ed in all his throaty early 90s pomp. I think they've written many better songs (both then and now.)

WtOB? wrote:

cutuphalfdead wrote:

dimejinky99 wrote:

VinylGuy wrote:They should have play it in Lolla, it would have been amazing.

Check the stats. 'Special' songs don't get played at festivals.

Bonnaroo 08 had Hard To Imagine.

Bannaroo 08 had a lot of "special" songs.

WMA, yeah?

I like the second half of the Of the Earth solo and the outro jam, but I'm not altogether sold on how everything works together in the whole song.

My main problem is that it sounds like they just lifted the Porch solo/jam and glued it onto a sub par rewrite of Nick Cave's 'Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!'