Bugs

I got bugs
I got bugs in my room
Bugs in my bed
Bugs in my ears
Their eggs in my head
Bugs in my pockets
Bugs in my shoes
Bugs in the way, I feel about you
Bugs on my window
Trying to get in
They don't go nowhere
Waiting, waiting...
Bugs on my ceiling
Crowded the floor
Standing, sitting, kneeling...
A few block the door
And now the question's:
Do I kill them?
Become their friend?
Do I eat them?
Raw or well done?
Do I trick them?
I don't think they're that dumb
Do I join them?
Looks like that's the one
I got bugs on my skin
Tickle my nausea
I let it happen again
They're always takin' over
I see they surround me, I see...
See them deciding my fate
Oh, that which was once...was once up to me...
Now it's too late
I got bugs in my room...one on one
That's when I had a chance
I'll just stop now
I'll become naked
And with them...I'll become one


Since I wrote this up for the Vitalogy guided tour thread I don't really have anything personally to add. My thoughts on the song haven't changed. So I'm just gonna copy my entry from that thread into here

Flip to the page on Bugs in the Vitalogy songbook and you’ve got a great big picture of a cockroach, and that’s it. Not the most subtle moment in the booklet, but bugs is not a very subtle song.

Bugs is a difficult song to listen to at times, at least casually. It’s a wry, sarcastic spoken word piece accompanied by an out of tune accordion and percussion that sounds like someone stepping across a field of swarming roaches.

In some ways it’s a depressing piece to follow the tentative, but somehow triumphant, Corudroy. Bugs is a song of descent, of gradual surrender, and takes back the progress and momentum of the previous song.

In this song it seems pretty clear (to me anyway) that the Bugs are meant to symbolize the music industry and celebrity culture that is so destructive of art, authenticity, and even life, but the bugs can represent any force that’s hostile to those principles. Bugs are a good choice of metaphor for Eddie to use for this piece. They are faceless, identical, amoral, and have an inexorable sense of inevitability about them (waiting…waiting…). They only want to feed themselves and expand and care nothing for how they effect the lives of those they need to feed off of (flashbacks to Rats are not inappropriate here). There are too many to kill, to many to reason with., and in the end there is no choice left but to give in. He never fully does, as Bugs is immediately followed by Satan’s Bed, the last moment of defiance on the record, but you leave Bugs wondering just how long the subject is going to be able to keep fighting back against a foe, an industry, a trend, a collection of social values so much more powerful than he is—especially if he remains alone, one man staring down the swarm.

Beyond the thematic fit there is something powerful about Bugs as a statement. While the presence of the accordion and music like this is less impactful after discovering an artist like Tom Waits, including a song like this on a record from one of the best selling bands in the world is a wonderful fuck you gesture and artistic statement directed at an industry that habitually takes whatever innovative art they can fine and distributes bastardized clones as quickly as they can be assembled. It is a declaration that there is something intangible at work here, that there is a core to the music that cannot be copied, duplicated, or even defined, and a refusal to be a party to any attempt at doing so.

I want to say 3 stars but there's some intangible here that I love about this song. So 4 stars.

didn't anyone else have a subscription to that fanzine TMN?

I didn't


I think this is a 3 star song for me. As an artistic statement I'd probalby give it 4, and my appreciation for it grew a few years ago when I discovered Tom Waits, whose influence is all over this song. But since I rarely feel the urge to actually listen to Bugs I'll leave it at 3

This is exactly why I wanted to give it a 3 star. But whenever I pop in Vitalogy and this comes on it definitely feels above average to me.

this song always makes me smile

Agreed.

3.5 stars.

I love this song.

It's almost like a precursor to Hitchhiker.

4 stars because I'd like to see Eddie bust out the accordion on stage.
He should have done it during his solo tour last year.

5 Stars.

It's the creepiest song they've done and it works perfectly as a statement song. To be honest, when I first heard it I didn't know about the concepts of shunning fame or pushing the audience away, and this was one of the most enjoyable songs off Vitalogy.

You fool!

I'll use this thread to give props to the person(s) who hung a "PLAY BUGS" banner from the 2nd level at the first Boston 04 show.

I like Bugs. I've a hard time rating it, though. I wouldn't ever listen to it on its own (unlike Aye Davanita), but I don't ever turn it off whenever I hear it. It's really nothing more than an enjoyable curiosity to me.

Also: "a stink beatle"?

Ringo? Pete? Paul?

1 star. I don't even consider it a song. I didn't give it 0 stars cause it's still PJ after all.

Bugs has always been a favorite of mine, along with all of the other "filler" tracks on Vitalogy. I discovered Tom Waits well after I tapered off my Pearl Jam intake and didn't make the connection until now. the "should I join them? Ahhhh don't think they're that dumb!" delivery always gets a chuckle from me. Perfect placementn on a near perfect album.

*pops in Vitalogy after waaay too long*

A personal favourite and a GREAT song to kick of a PJ mix CD.

I always remember a pre-Vitalogy article in which Eddie "joked" that he wanted to make this the first single.

Good as a part of Vitalogy, funny in its way, creepy too.

3 stars for the way it works on the album.