just a thought here but if there was no Iraq war what would he be writing about???? I love his song writing but so much songs about war?? He was pretty much a bust on riot act. Then it takes 18 months for this ablum and alot of references about war I think he might be struggling with song writing to some extent

i think he is just writing on whats relevant

hmmm ... I thought lyrically, he was pretty damn good on riot act. it's hard to argue otherwise.

Also, there are only a few songs on the new record that I would say are directly, obviously, about war. Others may have been somewhat inspired by it, but they aren't as direct.

Ed just writes about life, man. Always has. Probably always will. It's what attracted me to this band so many years ago, and what keeps me listening still.

You can't force creativity. Ed has to be moved by something in order to be inspired enough to compose poetic verses that seem real and not forced. If that is the war than so be it. I'll take whatever heart felt and inspired prose this man has to offer.

lyrically, he was ass on riot act. that shit about sop making you taller and any line in bushleaguer were embarrassing. i think the way he's attacked the war from perspectives on this album is great. i have no connection to the war at all, but army reserve and marker are 2 of my 3 faves on this album.

Uh... song lyrics are not prose...

the band took a more mature approach to tackling the hardship of war on this one vs. riot act. i think there is better music (lyrics and guitars) put behind the "message" on avacado. plus, many songs are not driven by war, yet eds daughter and lifes everyday struggle. music is the loudest voice. listen!

This came up in the RA thread as well - i said it there and i say it again: the soap made you taller line should not be quoted out of context.

the tv, she talks to me
breaking news and building walls
selling me what i don't need
i never knew soap made you taller

Now this seems to be about the media, its power and influence, and the bullshit they are selling us - both in a literal sense (eg. shopping tv - soap that is supposed to make you taller would be a fun example), and more importantly, in a metaphorical sense: they are selling us all kinds of myths on the news - propaganda, designed to build walls (to polarize, to keep us seperated). Consider also the ambiguity of the simple phrase breaking news in this sense.

Now, i think these are very good lyrics. Definitely neither shit nor embarassing.

I remember that post. It definitley turned that lyric around for me.

If you ever get a chance read Frances Fox Piven's The War At Home (I'm a little partial to it because it was my first published book review)--it provides a nice arguement for how the war in iraq/war on terror really pervades all aspects of foreign and domestic politics with larger and scarier consequences than might first be apparent. Eddie has the lyric 'what does it mean when a war has taken over' in WWS and it's easy to understand why it's so pervasive in his writing if you read that book. If there wasn't a war he'd probably write more songs about love and finding meaning in the world that dominant the earlier records, or just move on to other political causes.

Riot Act's got some fine writing on it. Thumbing My Way has magnificent lyrics.

I had to look at the original post in this thread a few times before it hit me that he's really onto something, although in my opinion he's found it in a roundabout way (or helped me find my way to it). I'll have to disagree with you about the Riot Act lyrics, because if you go to the RA thread everyone's talking about (could someone for it?) you'll find some great readings on the lyrical content of that album, especially Ed's contributions. I don't think he was struggling at all with his lyrics; my biggest problem with RA is that outside of his lyrics, the album seems to slouch. The band sounded exhausted and tired of playing music to me, like they didn't want to be there. Luckily when they went on the road this seemed to go away, but it's tough for me to sit through RA because of the way it sounds, not because of its content.

He's right that if there was no war, we wouldn't have the 8th album in our hands in its current state. Ed would have had to write about different things on some of the tracks; we probably would never hear WWS, Marker, Army Reserve, Severed Hand. But I'll argue that we probably wouldn't have heard some of the other songs either, like Life Wasted and Comatose, Unemployable and Gone. In the music there's a strong emotion that I haven't heard in abundnace in Pearl Jam's music for a while, and it's a very strong one: frustration. I think that may be the driving force behind this album, and you can hear it in a lot of the comments the band has made about the record and the current state of the world. It's also just so prevelant in the lyrics: "Something I never thought you'd be part of" / "God, what do you say?" / "You're always saying that there's something wrong..." / "What does it mean when a war has taken over?" And look at Come Back: although it's not as scathing as some of the other songs, it's obviously about the frustration about losing someone you love. Some people might see this as a negative force, they want them to stop complaining. But there's too many good things on this record to simply say frustration is useless; they're trying to channel that into an artform to do something positive. And this energy is what makes me really love this record at the moment; I've run off topic sort of, but I agree that without the current state of the world, we wouldn't have the album as it is, but I'll disagree with your RA points.

I think I'm rambling, does this make sense to anyone else?

nice post S_T. I think you're right.

And I think you can't spell.

SHOT DOWN!

thanks to the magic of the edit button no one will ever know

And my problem isn't that I can't spell, its that I don't know my hominyms. Of course I can't spell that so I guess you're still write.

It's okay, I still love you.

um...

didn't Jeff write Ghost?

Uh... Vedder quite often uses prose in his writing

they co-wrote the lyrics I believe. Only help help and get right are completely vedder free. Eddie also cowrote on you are (matt), bushleaguer (stone) and all or none (stone)

I've always loved the "soap" line in Ghost because of it's blatant sarcasm. I had no idea people hated it or regarded it as a bad lyric.

I always liked the sentiment, I just always thought it was a bit clumsy