GREEN DISEASE

It's a disease,... and they're all green
It emanates from their being
A satiation,.. with occupation

And like weeds,.. with big leaves
Stealing light from what's beneath
Where they have more,...
Still they take more

Course I know,.. then I don't
There's a stowaway with my throat
It's deceiving...
I don't believe him

We can scream,.. out our doors
Behind the wall a fat man snores
In his dreams he's,...
Choking Ti leaves

Well I guess
There's nothing wrong with what you say
But don't sell me,
'There can't be better ways'

Tell the captain
'This boats not safe
And we're drowning.'
Turns out
He's the one making waves

I said
There's nothing wrong with what you say
Believe me
Just asking you to sway
No white
Or black
Just grey
Can you feel this...
World with your heart and not your brain?

G-R-E-E-D..... G-R-E-E-D

Previous Songs of the Moment
1. In My Tree
2. Red Mosquito
3. Porch
4. I Got Id
5. Release
6. Do The Evolution
7. Breath
8. Corduroy
9. Elderly Woman...
10. Leash
11. Hail Hail
12. Grievance
13. Love Boat Captain
14. Even Flow
15. Black Red Yellow
16. In Hiding
17. Can't Keep
18. Indifference
19. Insignificance
20. Whipping
21. Black
22. Smile
23. Push Me Pull Me
24. Rats
25. God's Dice
26. All or None
27. Yellow Ledbetter
28. Last Exit
29. Who You Are
30. Rearview Mirror
31. Hold On
32. Present Tense
33. Light Years
34. Alive
35. Brain of J
36. Thumbing My Way
37. Hard to Imagine
38. Tremor Christ
39. Rival
40. Animal
41. Lukin
42. You Are
43. betterman
44. Given to Fly
45. Once
46. Low Light
47. Parting Ways
48. Off He Goes
49. Go
50. get right
51. World Wide Suicide
52. Angel
53. MFC
54. Long Road
55. Why Go
56. Nothingman
57. Save You
58. Of A Girl
59. Habit
60. Satan's Bed
61. Faithful
62. Oceans
63. Gone
64. WMA
65. State of Love and Trust
66. Spin The Black Circle
67. Life Wasted
68. Arc
69. Garden
70. All Those Yesterdays
71. Sleight of Hand
72. Other Side
73. Let Me Sleep
74. I'm Open
75. Blood
76. Nothing As It Seems
77. All Night
78. Jeremy
79. No Way
80. Around The Bend
81. Immortality
82. Comatose
83. Daughter
84. Alone
85. I am Mine
86. Down
87. Cropduster
88. Strangest Tribe
89. Inside Job
90. Drifting
91. Wishlist
92. Big Wave
93. Sad
94. Stupid Mop
95. Come Back
96. Glorified G
97. Puzzles and Games (Light Years Demo)
98. Dirty Frank
99. Ghost
100. Marker In the Sand
101. Undone

I admit that I have a soft spot for Riot Act. I like being able to explore the deep, resonant corners of Eddie’s voice without the screaming. I love the live feel of many of the tracks. And I enjoy observing superior musicianship and some creativity elevating some rather mediocre songwriting. That brings me to GREEN DISEASE. It is not one of those previously mentioned mediocre songs. It has the basic components for a good song, a terrific basic riff, catchy chorus and a nice vocal melody, on an album that really could have used more of them. So what went wrong?

The story of GREEN DISEASE is not a happy one. Let’s start with the recording process. Many of the songs were rehearsed, and then recorded virtually live. GREEN DISEASE was not one of those. It never made it past the rehearsal stage. The rhythm and vocal tracks were recorded at once, but all of the guitar parts were overdubbed later. This might explain the dull sounding drums, the lack of dynamic contrast and the sparse-sounding live versions.

Finally, there are the lyrics. Possibly Eddie’s worst. One can only guess at where these come from. Ostensibly about greed, they never focus enough to elicit any sustained response. My favorite verse:

We can scream,.. out our doors
Behind the wall a fat man snores
In his dreams he's,...
Choking Ti leaves

Say, what?

It does sort of work in the context of Riot Act. As a stand-alone song, 2 stars.

A missed opportunity on an album that lavished attention on inferior material. File this song under “ones that got away.”

Where did you get that recording info - that's really interesting and goes part way to explaining why the song doesn't really sound right. It reminds me of breakherfall in the way that it should be good but isn't. It waivers between short ditty, rocker, pop song, arena rock and garage rock and not in a good way. I don't like the guitar tones on this either - it would have sounded better with some more classic tones.

I like the 'stealing light from what's beneath line'. I also think it's 'tea leaves' not 'ti leaves'. Makes more sense as tea leaves are used to predict the future and so might be the fact that the fat man is struggling / trying to deny his spiritual side or trying to deny us our futures.

Also the reference to LBC is mildly clever as is the idea that you register your grievances with the lords who are creating them.

The recording information is from the online session guide that has disappeared from the internets since yesterday. A very interesting development. But the guitar parts sound like overdubs anyway. The guitar arpeggio that makes the verses quite interesting is not played live as far as I can tell. The rhythm parts sound like they were laid down without any idea of where the song might be going. Too bad really.

It is definitely Ti leaves. These are Hawaiian Ti leaves, believed to ward off evil spirits. The evil spirits being the excesses resulting from greed. Making him fat perhaps?

And, yes, there are memorable lines. This is Eddie Vedder we're talking about. But usually we're talking about songs with mostly memorable lines and a few clunkers. My personal opinion on this song is that we have mostly clunkers with a few memorable lines.

You summed up my thoughts on this one perfectly. A terrific vocal melody, especially on the 'chorus' but the music doesn't feel finished and doesn't quite fit. And like bushleaguer, eddie never really focused on making any sort of sustained critque of capitalism and oligarchy, or make any point for that matter (and the g-r-e-e-d lyric makes me cringe). It is easy to sympathize wtih the sentiment, but the execution is pretty bad

It's a disease,... and they're all green
It emanates from their being
A satiation,.. with occupation

Terrible lyrics

And like weeds,.. with big leaves
Stealing light from what's beneath
Where they have more,...
Still they take more


This lyric is nice--The weed metaphor is well done--espeically since we usually take for granted that the generation of wealth is a good thing that benefits everyone, rather than take a more critical perspective that argues that the whole process is often parasitical

Course I know,.. then I don't
There's a stowaway with my throat
It's deceiving...
I don't believe him

Ugh

We can scream,.. out our doors
Behind the wall a fat man snores
In his dreams he's,...
Choking Ti leaves

What?

Well I guess
There's nothing wrong with what you say
But don't sell me,
'There can't be better ways'

the first lyric takes all the fire out of the previous critique, such as it is.

Tell the captain
'This boats not safe
And we're drowning.'
Turns out
He's the one making waves

Along with the weed lyric this is the other high point of the song, although it is too vague to really mean much (the other lyrics didn't do the heavy lifting necessary for this to work). It would be better in a stronger song

I said
There's nothing wrong with what you say
Believe me
Just asking you to sway

I understand the sentiment here, but this is weak writing

No white
Or black
Just grey
Can you feel this...
World with your heart and not your brain?

A decent set of lyrics that would again work better with a stronger build, but they don't feel earned at this point

2 stars

4 stars. Some of the lyrics are questionable, but this song has a confident energy that I can't deny. And I absolutely love the last lyric.

I agree with most of what's been said. There's just enough good here that I can trick myself into enjoying this song, but really it languishes with a lot of other Riot Act material that I feel has potential but for some reason was just never finished (or, in some cases, finished but not well).

I've seen it live a couple of times and it's got some energy thanks to the riff, so it's a better live tune than a lot of the RA material.

And there are some lyrics I really like here:

And like weeds,.. with big leaves
Stealing light from what's beneath
Where they have more,...
Still they take more

is one of the best anti-corporate lyrics Ed ever wrote. and

Tell the captain
'This boats not safe
And we're drowning.'
Turns out
He's the one making waves

is one of his better anti-Bush lyrics, certainly far better than anything in Bushleaguer, and with the added benefit of being applicable to any irresponsible leader.

Too bad the rest of the lyrics in the song are, at best, incomprehensible, and at worst downright cringe-worthy.

2 stars.

My favorite song on Riot Act. I like these lyrics:

We can scream,.. out our doors
Behind the wall a fat man snores
In his dreams he's,...
Choking Ti leaves

I think the fat man just symbolizes gluttony.


however, the "No White or Black just gray " line is not very creative.

Before I read SLH's write-up, I was thinking much the same. Good music, pretty good lyrics, why don't I think much of this song?

I'll still give it 3 stars.

One of my favorite PJ songs, but I can recognize that it's not a masterpiece.
Personal Vote: *****
Actual Vote: ***

Studio version gets 3 stars for me... good song, but sounds rather boring.

Live version gets 4 stars... much better, more lively.

3 stars. decent but not great.

It does little for me. I like the overdubbed guitars, they're interesting and fairly unusual, but they give the song an extra little layer. As has been said, the recording of this song is pretty flat. It sounds like it's recorded inside a biscuit tin. If that makes any sense. It's lifeless, but maybe production is partly to blame for that? The bare bones of the song are worth 3 stars, but it only really earns that sort of grading in a live setting.

wut?

as you can tell from my screen name - this song has always set well with me. Except live - I agree it's a little flat. The lyrics aren't Ed's best - but they are good enough. There certainly are worst lyrics on Riot Act (LBC, Bushleaguer).

I love the frantic feel to this song - it's a new wave punk type song. I think that's a quote from RS. I think you guys are missing the boat on this, it's a solid rocker that's different from what they have done before. It was a sure sign to me the band was progressing, moving in different ways, trying new things. They should of worked a little harder on this song - it's got that pop feel but it still rocks. Should of been polished off and released as a single. Four stars.

I wrote the OP, but I'm with you on the song itself. It's a great song. But they should have put way more attention into a great song like this rather than getting out a vocoder and working up the terrific ending on a song that goes nowhere like HELP HELP.

That what's such a shame. A 5 star song reduced to 2 stars, at least for me. That why I refer to it as "one that got away."

boring. shitty song.

All these responses calling the song mediocre make me like it even more.

I just... can't get into it. Meh.

Gods Dice > Green Disease?

They're about the same for me.