Better Man by Pearl Jam starts slowly. It opens with a single guitar playing long, almost sinister notes with a few bass notes scattered around. It’s reminiscent of “Once” from their debut album, “Ten.” It sets you up for a burst of energy, but instead, there is a quick beat of silence, and then a single guitar starts again, but instead of the screech of “Once,” is a quieter, almost pensive sound. It feels miles from the sound of “Ten” but also a natural evolution on the journey to “Vitalogy” through “Vs.” their third and second albums, respectively.
“Ten” hit like an atomic bomb when I was in high school. Millions of words have been written about the arrival of grunge and how it changed everything. I don’t have much I can add to them if only to say they very much applied to me and my Connecticut upbringing. In the vaguely partisan ways of things, I sided with Pearl Jam over Nirvana and have remained so ever since.
“Vs.” was released on October 19th, 1993, which happened to coincide with my freshman year at Boston University. It was released at midnight, and I was ready, along with a few hundred other fans, waiting outside of a record store in Kenmore Square, right next to the dearly departed Rathskeller venue. A homeless man came up to me in the middle of the crowd and kissed me on the lips after I gave him a few bucks. People shared pizzas from the also dearly departed pizza place that sat below the street. It’s still the best pizza I ever had. The store ran out of t-shirts, so they gave me and my friends promotional EPs from other bands when it was our turn to buy “Vs.” The one I got was a six-song EP from the band “Dream 6” featuring a song called “Rain,” which I have loved ever since. I only recently got a bit into Concrete Blonde and realized that “Dream 6” was an early iteration of them and that the song “Rain” appears on one of their albums. Afterward, I went back to my dorm room and listened to Pearl Jam on my headphones until I fell asleep. “Vs.” remains my favorite Pearl Jam album still.
Then, a sort of strange thing happened. I stopped listening to Pearl Jam much. I didn’t buy another of their albums until the mid-2000s. I went back and bought the ones that had come after “Vs.” then but never listened to them much. I honestly couldn’t even tell you why. I generally enjoyed the singles when they came out, but they just didn’t stick with me once they fell out of radio play. It feels odd in retrospect because I never stopped listening to the first two albums.
It wasn’t until I read Steve Hyden’s incredible book, “Long Road: Pearl Jam and the Sound of a Generation,” that I came all the way around and fully dove into Pearl Jam again and tried to understand my own relationship with them and their music. I cannot recommend this book more highly. Everything Hyden writes is worth reading; although my dislike of Radiohead has kept me from that tome, I’m sure it’s magnificent. It’s not a true history of the band; it’s an exploration of their journey and their meaning. It’s grappling with big questions that the band also grappled with and trying to understand the answers. Again, it’s a terrific book, and it’s the kind of thing I would say is a must-read if you spend time thinking about music and bands.
During my own re-examination of the band I began to really listen to the song Better Man, which I always had liked but never got into before. Since then, I’ve been listening to it nearly constantly. According to Spotify, it was my 4th most-played song last year, and it’s going to be up there again this year.
“Waiting” is the first word you hear when Eddie Vedder starts singing, followed by “Watching,” and it feels like those two words sum up my relationship with Pearl Jam. I was aware of them, listening occasionally, watching as it were.
As I write this and listen to the song I think maybe I understand it all a bit more. I think I was waiting for some sort of permission to love the band again. There’s no question that they got less cool in a hurry in the 90s. They remained big, but the cutting edge moved past them. I had moved into Ska, Punk, and a million other things and Pearl Jam just wasn’t pushing the edge or exploring new territory. “Better Man” came out in 1994, but so did Offspring’s “Smash,” Green Day’s “Dookie,” and Live’s “Throwing Copper.” I’ve never been one to worry about being cool or edgy, but it was clear that Pearl Jam had their moment. I mentioned that I kept listening and loving the first two albums, but I guess that was enough.
Then Hyden came along with his book and told me it was ok to go back and see what I was missing.
And so I’ve listened to Better Man. A Lot.
What I’ve decided is that the guitar coming in at 2:14 is maybe the most perfect rock and roll sound ever conceived. The drama is already building in the song, and the momentum is rolling. Then, the second time Vedder tells us that she’s lying when she says she’s in love, the guitar gives us the push, and the rest of the song is fully what Pearl Jam does best, a mid-tempo rocker that’s filled with both hope and sadness, inertia and energy.
There is a live version from the June 28th, 2008, Mansfield, MA bootleg that is almost as good, if not better, than the live version. It starts with the pensive guitar notes, and the crowd jumps in at the same time as Vedder singing “Waiting.” He gets five words into the song and stops. The whole crowd is singing the song perfectly in time. They get as far as “Looks her over” and realize Vedder is just listening too. They give a little cheer when they realize what’s happening and then go full boar into it. The crowd continues in harmony with the guitar until giving a big cheer at the end of the quieter part of the song that lasts for 20 seconds, and then Vedder joins back in with a trademark “Oooohohohoh” and sings with the crowd. The band jumps in, and everyone in that stadium goes forward in a thrilling harmony. It’s an incredible couple of minutes on one of the scores of Pearl Jam official bootlegs. If you’re a regular concertgoer, you know that kind of magic moment when it comes. I’ve experienced a handful myself, but they’re special and not at every concert.
The live track gets even better as the band slides seamlessly into a cover of “Save it for Later,” one of the Beat’s greatest tunes. The crowd claps along with a driving energy. As a big fan of the Beat, I was thrilled when I heard them go into it. It’s the kind of unexpected cover that you get sometimes and never forget. The whole thing together is just a brilliant bit of magic captured because of Pearl Jam’s bootleg system.
Anyway, it’s late on a Tuesday night in early September when the air suddenly gets cool, and you can feel the end of Summer and the oncoming Autumn in the air. I get a little nostalgia for the days and music of my youth this time of year. It’s hard not to living so close to a college campus. Pearl Jam was a big part of that time, even if only briefly, so tonight felt like a good night to think about them and a reminder that, Oh, oh, I’m still alive.
SHOUTING STREET 
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