The internet is there for all of us to learn, friend.

Agreed.

Having said that, this song really grew on me as I listened to S/T. And Stip's guide also helped me appreciate it even more.
The lyrics are absolutely top notch. The music is very good, but could be even better. But let's not get hung up on that. A really good song, among the best from S/T after Inside Job....

4 stars....

it appears i gave this a 4 at some point; i'm kinda thinking it's now a 3 in my book.

I feel a sickness.

I'm too tired to speak with any author-i-tay, but I love this song. Love the contrasts, the changes, the words, the harkening (virtual lift?) to Bad Radio from Mike. It's just wonderful to me.

.

Great write ups everyone on this song! This is easily my favorite song from 'Pearl Jam'. The dual nature of the song is amazing, and I'm hoping this is something Pearl Jam will explore further. I know they've done other songs where it's kinda mellow, then heavy - Given To Fly for example - but to my knowledge, no Pearl Jam song has had such a distinct separation of sound and mood. I think this is one of Pearl Jam's strongest songs to date.

The coolest thing about the contrast in this song is that they've flipped the uses of heavy and soft.
Typically, if you think of a standard PJ song structure (or most rock music) the verses are softer and melodic and then the choruses are heavier/loud/soaring. This song does the opposite. The verses chugg along with that driving riff and the choruses open up to this beautiful and lush melody. Lastly you get the killer outro which is one of my favorite PJ signatures. They are one of the best outro bands. Think of these classic outros...

Betterman (live especially)
Immortaliy (with that A-chord jam)
Corduroy (on the album it was just an outro, but live since '98 they turned it into an excellent opportunity for the Mike solo)
Present Tense (once the full band kicks in that's almost all outro)
Grievance (absolutely brillian... "I wanna breathe...follow the scene

you fogot what are three of their best outros--Alive, Black, and Porch

Black is probably my personal favorite!!

Sounds sort of like me.

4 stars.

This line sounds extremely awkward when Ed gets to "conveniently", like he's jamming in way too many syllables for the space he's left himself.

I was torn between two and three stars for this but went for two. The line above just seals it.

Definitely one of my least favourite Pearl Jam tunes.

It never ceases to amaze me how PJ fans can have such vastly different opinions.
Marker has to be one of the smartest, catchiest and well written songs in the catalog yet it could still miss the mark for some. It would fit perfectly on almost any album (except maybe Ten) yet could still be someone's least favourite tune. Wow. I'd be interested to know.... what do you think of songs like Ghost, Get Right or God's Dice?

southp, I think that you might be on to something here.

I love all three of those songs.

Spenno is one of the weirdest PJ fans. But still a great guy.

That being said, Marker is an insanely good song.

I like the way that lyric is delivered. It's a little garbled but I like the dichotomy there--that the word convienent is hard to sing--and his vocalizations at the end transition it nicely into the chorus

My favorite thing about Eddie as a lyric writer is that he's never cavalier about the cadence and meter of his lyrics. That's the thing that I care about before all else. It's nice if the content is thought-provoking or has pretty imagery, but that is less important to me. The word "conveniently" has four syllables. The final phrase of the final couplet in each verse has four syllables:

...but not in love

...con-ve-nient-ly

...[dan]-er-ous to me.

One of the most effective things about the verse lyrics is the way that the downbeats in the five-count verse measures correspond to important lyrical ideas. I don't know whether this was intentional, or whether it happened by chance, but it makes the song more effective to my ears. Also, Matt's drumming on this tune is outstanding. It's a shame that despite the bridge being percussion-based, he's nearly buried in the mix.

Did I mention that this is one of my very favorite tunes?

Ok, well that explains a lot. Like I said, we all have different opinions, but i would've thought that a song like Marker appeals to a very broad range of the fan base. It has the harder verses to appeal to the more rockin' crowd, plus the very well written choruses/outro to appeal to the melodic crowd. But alas, when you're dealing with a Get Right fan there's no accounting for taste. It's a bakers dozen parade my friend!

i listened to S/T this week and this song which once was very low in my opinion sounded better than before for me. what prevents it from being a part of "the best 1-2-3-4-5 openers" is the odd juxtaposition of styles in it. it's not something that puts me off conceptually but i just don"t like the melody in the chorus - it feels like i heard this before. additionnally, the mix is weird; the floor toms at the beginning blast my speakers, as if they've put way too much low-end bass on this song compared with the others - it breaks the mood of the record for me.
BUT this song is still better than i thought

I had a lot of trouble with that at first--with the bridge too--like it was 3 seperate parts, all of which I enjoyed, but which had trouble cohering together. Then one day it just clicked.