4 stars.
Long Road is a song about loss and memory of the departed. Most of us know that it was written in honor of one of Ed’s teachers in high school who had recently passed on, per the “For Clayton†scribbling on the back of the Merkinball single. But the song is widely open to personal interpretation; it doesn’t necessarily have to be about the literal death of a loved one, or even a death in the figurative sense. Long Road is about loss and how one deals with it, or, more importantly, how one finds hope in it.
The beauty of the lyrics relies on wonderful imagery and a chorus all can relate to. “I have wished for so long, how I wish for you today†is simple enough but really cuts to the heart of longing for someone.. Who is the narrator wishing for, and why does he wish for them today? Ed’s best lyrics are the ones written from a perspective that is never fully realized, for we can individually adapt them to our own lives and take them for what we wish. This is how great songwriters work, and Ed is one of the few who can pull it off without pulling punches or relying on pop music clichés.
Ah, the imagery:
“Holding hands are daughters and sons
And their faiths are falling down, down, downâ€
“And the wind keeps roarin'
and the sky keeps turning grey
and the sun is setting
the sun will rise another dayâ€
Let’s begin with the first. Daughters and sons holding hands, trying to keep each other strong. This is pretty powerful stuff. Instead of making it melodramatic, the narrator simply sings about what he observes. He does not focus on the sadness of the situation, but instead opts to comment on his point of view, and, next, how he interprets the feelings of the daughters and sons. There is a familial connection between the two that sprouts from a problematic situation, and despite the melancholy, they connect on an emotional level because of their blood-ties. It may very well be the death of a loved one, or, again, it may not be.
The second main visual point is purely symbolic. The grey sky and setting sun are obvious metaphors for loss, but, yet again, the narrator is hopeful. “The sun will rise another day†He will meet the departed in another sky or another time; it’s not so much a sense of loss that it is a sense of separation. This is reiterated in the chorus: “I have wished for so long, how I wish for you today.†The narrator will see this person again, but he doesn’t know when or how. His hope is the song’s salvation as well as his own.
One of the most chilling parts of the song is the very end, in which the young narrator (Ed) asks if he’ll walk the long road, only to have a callback from the otherwise vocally absent Neil Young answering that we all walk the long road. The dichotomy of their voices, and how we can tell their age difference by their pitch and timbre, is a perfect vocal coda to a song about such meditative issues the song approaches.
My lone critique of the song is the lead-up to the final chorus. Ed’s guttural wail should be further up in the mix. This is the narrator’s emotional catharsis, and we should be more privy to it than we are. What he chooses to not express in words, he expresses here, and the listener deserves to hear that baring of his soul. It’s not a huge issue, but something that would improve an already wonderful song.
Long Road is a gorgeous composition. From the simplicity and timing of the opening chords to Neil Young’s organ to the vocal performance, you really can’t find a better ballad from Pearl Jam. Though the band was in a state of flux when it was released, and it’s not a full-band recording, Long Road is a heavyweight among all the other songs in the entire Pearl Jam canon. As great as a song that I Got Shit is, it is matched by its b-side pound for pound, creating a perfect little single.
