I have written well
over 200 pages of text on Pearl Jam’s music, what I think it means, and what it
means to me. I have never felt as stumped by a song as I have by
Sirens. For the first 5-6 listens I had no idea what to make of
it. I still am not really sure. But if I was going to
make a list of songs I thought Pearl Jam would someday write this would have
been right there at the bottom. It is so puzzling because this is,
in many ways, the anti-Pearl Jam song. Take almost everything you
would normally expect from them, invert it, and you end up somewhere close to
sirens.
Early reports of
this song likened it to an 80s power ballad. I was expecting something huge and
bombastic like November Rain. Hell, I was looking forward to
that. I find as I’ve gotten older I have a certain appreciation for
songs that just go for broke, and bask in their own
ridiculousness. 10 years ago my favorite karaoke song to sing
probably would have been Jeremy. Today it is Total Eclipse of the
Heart.
In some ways, this
is the textbook definition of a cheesy song. In other ways it is the opposite
of cheese. There is often a calculated, manipulative quality to cheese, and
this song fully embraces this type of song with the breathtaking sincerity that
has always separated Pearl Jam from their peers. This is guilty pleasure that
is not only guilt free, but would be puzzled by the suggestion that you should
feel guilty.
It’s curious. It
would be a textbook definition of an ultra cheesy 80s power ballad, except
there is no huge chorus, the huge solo is subdued, there is no catchy vocal
melody, no hook—the things that made the cheese fun. Everything that made an
80s power ballad what it was is actually absent from here. It’s
almost like you’re left with the bare bones template of that style of
song. These are master craftsmen, and so this begs the questions,
what did Pearl Jam choose to fill it with, and did it work?
The music is very
pretty, but oddly non-descript. Again, it’s almost like a template
just waiting for the details that will make it beautiful. Like an undressed
mannequin, maybe. There are some nice moments here and there (I really
like the strumming coming out of the solo, for instance, and some nice
background vocalizations), but for the most part it is unadorned, absence the
lushness or desolation Pearl Jam usually adds to these songs. There
is a lovely melancholy to the music, but again, it is still a blank canvas.
Eddie is what fills
it in. This is a subdued performance, but he sounds beautiful and
sings movingly. The song primes you for power ballad excess and then
hangs all those expectations on Eddie’s affecting but understated performance.
Unlike everything else we’ve heard on this record, the vocal melody
is not particularly prominent. So it’s all on his subtle performance
and the story he is telling. For instance, the song climaxes with a
gentle falsetto delivery of the lyric ‘the fear goes away’ and some delicate
vocalizations, rather than the bombast we’d normally expect. It
tries to sweep you away so gently you don’t notice until you’re already falling. If
you let it happen it’ll be a wonderful song. If you don’t, the song
will be boring.
It’s a moving set of
lyrics, for the most part, a story about the fear of loss that comes from being
blessed by having something too precious to lose, and the gratitude for having
experienced it. Eddie has covered this in The End, Speed of Sound, and Just
Breathe. In some ways this is the most ambitious take on these themes.
In some ways this is
a song written from a very specific experience, and easier to appreciate if you
can relate (as is always the case with love songs about the possession of,
rather than the hunger for). If you have that person you literally can’t bear
to lose (not just someone you love) it’ll be easier to get inside this
song. It’s a love song, but not love in the new
love/passion/bright flame sense of the term. This is the love that
turns to air, that you breathe in so often you cease to notice except for those
moments where something forces you to step back and see it again for the first time. The
shock of how powerful it is, and how meaningful it is, can be breathtaking when
you are lucky enough to have it happen. There is no experience in the world
that feels more real. But if you’ve never experienced it then Sirens
will seem, well, cheesy.
It’s true that songs
like The End and Just Breathe also tried to do the same thing. Many people
found those songs cheesy or overwrought. I loved them, but I knew I
loved them right away and they also had the tools to help me love them right
away. The more striking vocal melodies, the drama/melodrama in the
music. These aren’t present in Sirens, and so this isn’t an easy listen
So there we go. The
song still confounds me, even ten listens in. I don’t love it. I
don’t hate it. I don’t feel indifferent about it (I can easily spot those
reactions). For the first time in twenty years I just don’t know
what I think yet. In that respect I don’t know when I’ve last felt this
challenged by a Pearl Jam song, even though this doesn’t seem like a
particularly difficult song. The challenge comes from the way it
plays against expectations—the expectations I have for Pearl Jam and the way it
simultaneously primes you for a particular experience and then undercuts the
obvious foundations for that experience.
I can say
this. I know that it is very pretty, but in a way that feels a
little blank. Like I said above, this song, more than most of the
catalog (if not all) is a canvas waiting to be filled. And Eddie fills
it. But without the obviously vocal melody, chorus hooks, and the
rest, it’s going to come down to learning the words, diving into the story, and
letting it sweep me away. That will take time, and quiet, and not sitting in my
office getting interrupted by my colleagues. If this is
a song I want to belt at the top of my lungs it’ll be a massive success. If it
isn’t, then it’ll be a song that comes up on shuffle, and gets the occasional
listen as I try to discover if this is the time it’ll move me. But
it is way too early for me to tell.
Tonight, when I pace
the floor of my daughter’s room rocking her to sleep and listening to this
song, I’ll find the answer. And since my eyes just teared up just a little,
maybe I already know…
