vacate is the word...vengeance has no place on me or her cannot find the comfort in this world artificial tear...vessel stabbed...next up, volunteers vulnerable, wisdom can't adhere...
a truant finds home...and a wish to hold on... but there's a trapdoor in the sun...immortality...
as privileged as a bore...victims in demand for public show swept out through the cracks beneath the door holier than thou, how? surrendered...executed anyhow scrawl dissolved, cigar box on the floor...
a truant finds home...and a wish to hold on too... he saw the trapdoor in the sun... immortality...
i cannot stop the thought...i'm running in the dark... coming up a which way sign...all good truants must decide...
oh, stripped and sold, mom...auctioned forearm... and whiskers in the sink... truants move on...cannot stay long some die just to live...
First of all, thanks to stip for letting me do this song, one of the songs that first elevated me from pj fan to obsessive back in 96-97. As I became more entrenched in the pj fan community, I happily discovered that immortality was held in similar esteem by many of the other hardcore fans. for proof of the special place this song holds in the hearts of pj fanatics, one need only glance at the results of the previous few pj march madness song tourneys held here on RM. Immortality has 1 first place finish, 1 2nd place finish, and I believe two other final four finishes. Clearly, Immortality occupies a rarefied space among hardcore pj fans shared only by a select other few songs.
So what is it about the song that affects so many of pj's most devoted fans so powerfully? After a quick word about the early live performances of the song, I'll address the finished version, then try and sum up the overall feelings the song evokes.
Lyrically, Immortality is abstract and non-linear, almost to the point of incomprehensibility. Before looking at the final lyrics, it's important to acknowledge the two sets of alternate lyrics eddie sang during the two performances in Boston on April 11th and 12 of 1994. These two performances feature radically different lyrics both from each other and from the final lyrics. I'm not going to do a line-by-line analysis of these alternate lyrics, but I do want to make a couple of important points about them. First, on both Boston nights, the lyrics contained much more use of first person point-of-view, a perspective largely abandoned in the final lyrics. Indeed, on both nights, Eddie sang the final line of the chorus as "I'll die just to live." Second, during the 4/12 performance, the final lyric of the powerful post-solo section is "It is not my fault," words which eddie screams out hopeless but defiantly at the same time. The Boston '94 performances of Immortality have an intense first-person immediacy and an explicit struggle with guilt that Eddie backed away from when it came to the final lyrics. Nevertheless, these two early performances give us clues as to themes that are still present in the final lyrics, just slightly more hidden.
Before I get started on the final version, I'll address the Cobain issue right here. Is the song about Cobain? There is no definitive answer, but if I was pressed, I would say 'partially.' Certainly, some of the original Boston lyrics lend themselves to this interpretation, which I believe is one of the reasons why Eddie pulled back from them and changed them. Ultimately though, whether the song was inspired by Kurt's death or not, its relevance and impact goes far beyond a meditation on that one particular tragedy. Like all great pieces of art, it has something fundamental to say about the human condition.
Immortality begins with seven notes of dread repeated 4 times. The notes are a harbinger of what's to come: repetitive and doomy, you get the sense that there is not is going to be much hope of redemption in this number. Then the the slow strumming that underlies most of the song kicks in, and it gives the song a softer sadness than the initial harsh notes would have indicated. This mixture of absolute dread and softer regret is one of the song's great strengths.
So what do we make of the final lyrics? When reviewing Neil Young's 1974 masterpiece On the Beach, critic Kit Rachlis wrote, "Sentences are strewn around like forgotten laundry, images are piled up like last week's dishes. Lyrics end like the half-opened magazine on the bathroom floor." Immortality presents a similar maelstrom of evocative images, feelings, and story fragments. The order and presentation of them feels haphazard, and for some (including me), that is part of the song's appeal. In the first verse we have:
vacate is the word...vengeance has no place so near to her cannot find the comfort in this world artificial tears...vessel stabbed...next up, volunteers vulnerable, wisdom can't adhere...
Packed into just these four lines we have: dangerous whispers of revenge, a woman whose innocence is perilously close to being stained, the despair of someone who cannot find relief or comfort while remaining alive, the defiling of someone or something holy (the vessel), and a sense of hopeless vulnerability. The images are sharp and cut into the listener like a knife, and while they appear disconnected on paper, when coupled with the flow of the desolate acoustic guitar and soft drums they flow together seamlessly. I do not plan to offer any overarching interpretation of any of Immortality's lyrics: I think it would destroy much of the mystery and pain of the song. But the images Eddie presents evoke many of those emotions we try to bury or hide from as we move through our lives, but which remain lurking just below the surface: despair, loneliness, guilt, anger, vengeance-lust, and hopelessness. Immortality is one of those songs where I get the feeling that as the song progresses, we are burrowing more and more deeply into the depths of someone's subconscious.
Then the chorus, punctuated by sudden musical stops after each line, stops which bring a note of urgency back to the song:
a truant finds home...and a wish to hold on... but there's a trapdoor in the sun...immortality...
A truant is returning home, but there's sure no 'Welcome Back' sign on the doorway. When you return home and you still can't find what you need, there's not much left to hope for, except maybe a last wish. As to the lyric that gives the song its title...when introducing this song during the 6/27/98 Alpine Valley show, Eddie says something like "You ever wish you might be able to uh...live forever? This song's about being careful what you wish for." Life eternal, it seems, is not the blessing we might expect, and maybe the 'trapdoor' is the escape from life we all sometimes feel as though we want.
The soft strumming returns as we head into the second verse:
as privileged as a whore...victims in demand for public show swept out through the cracks beneath the door holier than thou, how? surrendered...executed anyhow scrawl dissolved, cigar box on the floor...
We've moved beyond the personal pain of the first verse here: we're now into deliberate exploitation and humilation, the treatment of human beings like animals for sale. This verse brings to mind slave auctions that took place in the South in the early 1800s...or maybe even the Holocaust. The line "holier than thou, how" might refer to the dangerousness of the belief that some people are better, holier than others..a belief that has pervaded history and is part of the underlying philosophy that gave rise to the atrocities I mentioned above. Especially given the picture that accompanies the Immortality sheet in Vitalogy's liner notes, the last two lines of the verse evoke the slaughter of Native Americans by whites during the settlement of North America, and the terrible injustice cruelty that characterized it... "surrendered, executed anyhow." What a gut crusher of a line.
The second chorus arrives with lyrics mirroring the first, and then we're into what for many is the emotional climax of the song: mike's solo. What Eddie holds back in terms of naked emotion with his lyrics and vocal delivery in this song, Mike expresses. In the studio, the solo is more restrained, but live, it has three parts: the meditative opening section, the slow-burning middle part, and the final, flaming cathartic burst at the end. What this solo does so well is build on itself..it doesn't go from zero to 100 instantly, as many of mike's other solos do. Somehow too, it's fitting that the fiercest emotion in live performances of Immortality comes from the wordless voice of the guitar, for there are no words to express the magnitude and scope of the kind of suffering Ed is hinting at in the second verse.
The moment where the solo finally crashes to a sudden stop is one of the most powerful ones in all of PJ's music, but we don't get much of a chance to digest it, because Eddie comes back in a couple of seconds later with the only use of first person in the final lyrics and what emerges as the song's lyrical climax:
i cannot stop the thought...i'm running in the dark... coming up a which way sign...all good truants must decide...
Eddie is now singing with a personal urgency that matches the change into first person, and the music reflects the elevated urgency here too. The images here are of uncontrollable obsessive thoughts and feelings of frightened helplessness...common symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder for the psychologically-minded of you out there. The which-way sign and the truant's decision might refer to the decision between life and death... but you get the sense that the person who's running in the dark is not headed for the light...he's headed straight off a cliff (and possibly deliberately).
And then the final chorus, different from the first two:
oh, stripped and sold, mom...auctioned forearm... and whiskers in the sink... truants move on...cannot stay long some die just to live...
In the first two lines, Eddie returns to the themes of humiliation and dehumanization explored in the second verse. The third line seems to be a kind of follow-up to the earlier choruses: the truant returned home, but couldn't find what he needed, so he moves on again in despair. And finally, the lyrical portion of the song concludes with the only line to survive (albeit in altered form) from the Boston versions: "Some die just to live." Death, it seems, can sometimes be a welcome relief, and, given the kinds of atrocities hinted at in Immortality, it's no surprise that Kurt Cobain is far from the only person to have felt this way.
The lyrics may be finished, but the song isn't: it concludes with a mammoth drum-based jam that echoes the solo in terms of the way it builds slowly to a crescendo and then bursts. Once again, the instrumental sections of Immortality express most fully the depths of emotion this brilliant song plumbs.
So that's it. I was gonna write a concluding section but considering how fuckin long this is already I'll just say that the combination of music and lyrics makes this song one of the absolute best in PJ's catalog. And while Immortality may be a song with little hope, those who wrote it or love it are far from hopeless people. We just realize that in order to see and fully appreciate the light, you can't ignore or skip over the dark.
Joined: Tue Nov 23, 2004 6:28 pm Posts: 5361 Location: St. Paul Gender: Male
Undoubtably a five star song, and clearly one of the best things they've ever done. I think that statement is easily justified by the aforementioned finishes in the March Madness comps over the years.
DeLima wrote:
Somehow too, it's fitting that the fiercest emotion in live performances of Immortality comes from the wordless voice of the guitar
So true.
At St. Paul '03, Mike opened the solo by sustaining one note for the majority of the first part, bending it slightly down near the end. This might not have seemed a big deal to anyone else there or when you hear it on the boot, but to me it was one long, powerful emotional release. I had my eyes closed the entire time and I just felt a huge weight lifted off of my shoulders in those few seconds. Probably one of the more powerful experiences I've had at any concert I've been to.
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 10:53 pm Posts: 8066 Location: Las Vegas via Rockford (Roscoe), IL Gender: Female
DeLima, that was a really great write up.
I gave it one star (and I really would rather listen to Sweet Lew). I know a lot of people really love this song, but I just can't get into it. Something's missing. However, I really do like the version from Benaroya Hall.
_________________ Frank Kevin
At night I drink myself to sleep and pretend I don't care that you're not here with me Cause it's so much easier to handle all my problems if I'm too far out to sea
Joined: Wed May 24, 2006 5:23 pm Posts: 12793 Location: Tours, FR Gender: Male
TwoAlarmFire wrote:
DeLima, that was a really great write up.
I gave it one star (and I really would rather listen to Sweet Lew). I know a lot of people really love this song, but I just can't get into it. Something's missing. However, I really do like the version from Benaroya Hall.
team anus just lost my vote
_________________ There has never been a silence like this before
Joined: Sat Sep 02, 2006 11:46 am Posts: 618 Location: Scotland Gender: Male
BadMusic wrote:
TwoAlarmFire wrote:
DeLima, that was a really great write up.
I gave it one star (and I really would rather listen to Sweet Lew). I know a lot of people really love this song, but I just can't get into it. Something's missing. However, I really do like the version from Benaroya Hall.
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I know a lot of people really love this song, but I just can't get into it. Something's missing. However, I really do like the version from Benaroya Hall.