Just A Girl


Thieves in the window
Trouble down the hall
The resin white ceiling
Blood, drippings, flows…
Out on the front line
Preachers sweep the earth
Out on their backsides
With nothing in common with the problem

She’s just a girl
Just, just a girl
Just one time around
She had little chance to make good
Distance of her life decided in the womb

Burning fires
Feel the red, true belief
This maid in progress
Betraying your mothers need for shelter

Just a girl
Just, just a girl
Just one time around
She had little chance to make good
Dreams still now she’s young
But it can be taken away
Just one time around
Can be taken away
We all make mistakes

Hush now baby
Don’t you cry
You’re my little alibi
Oh please
I need some sleep
And I’ll be taking you with me…

Just a girl…
Just a kid…


The Ten sessions were arguably the most fertile Pearl Jam ever had, producing a ton of b-sides that have made it into the community. Some, like State of Love and Trust, Breath, Wash, Footsteps, Yellow Ledbetter, and Alone, band classics. Others, like Brother and Hold On, come across as generic and forgettable, with grunge 101 riffs and tossed off lyrics. They’re fun every now and then, but they’re mostly just going to appeal to a completist (although Brother became a hit for some reason). I’d put just a girl in the later category.

The music is pretty forgettable (although it is played with heart), and is standard mid tempo Pearl Jam—tense, slowly delivered verses, expansive chorus, outro solo, and a foreboding bridge (although it doesn’t do any of these things particularly well). The vocal melody is nothing to write home about, although Eddie delivers it with passion. The one thing that really separates Just a Girl from the rest of the pack is the lyrics and subject matter, which are pretty solid for a song the band tossed off and never really came back to.
It seems to be a song about abortion, told not from the perspective of the girl giving the abortion, but the way that people (religious figures, activists, etc) miss the fact that it is first and foremost and intensely personal, profound, life changing, scary decision that someone has to make at an extremely fragile moment. They are dehumanized precisely at the time they most need others to recognize their own humanity. That regardless of everything else playing out at this moment, at the center of the struggle is just a girl—nothing more than that and because of that, so much more.

The bridge is intriguing—it’s clearly directed towards the unborn child, and her claim that she’ll be following the child gives the song a great deal more weight—rather than her being in a hospital it puts me in mind of a back alley clinic—a girl who, unable to turn anyplace safe for help, is forced to go someplace underground or illegal, where her procedure is botched and her life is now in danger (blood, dripping, flows…). If that’s the case I would have liked to see them follow this up, or develop it further. It’s ambiguous, which can be powerful (see Jeremy) but it feels more underdeveloped than deliberate.
In the end this is a 2 star song for me, but unlike Brother or Hold On, could have been much more.

For those of you who have managed to get a copy of the Lost Dogs demo disc there is a different mix on there. Musically I think it’s a bit superior (has some more funk to the guitar and a little more urgency overall), although Eddie’s performance may be better on the Ten Re-release.

I've never really liked this song. The verses are alright, but I can't stand the chorus.

Love it. Much better than Brother.

i heard this song for the first time probably 15, 16 years ago? i never realized these were the lyrics. i used like it alot more, but ill agree its better than brother.

Unless "womb" ends with an "s", that lyric isn't right. The unofficial lyric sites say "reverse" - it sounds a little more to me like "words" or "worst".

I wouldn't trust unoffical lyric sites (not that mine are offical). And womb makes sense with the song, but I'll listen again

Thieves in the window
Trouble down the hall
The resin white ceiling
Blood dripping thoughts

Out on the front line
Preachers sweep the air
Out on their backsides
With nothing in common with the problem

She's just a girl
Just... just a girl

Just one time around
She has little chance to make good
Distance of her life
Decided in the rose

Burning fires
Feel red to beliefs
Dismay in progress
Betraying your mother's need for her shelter

Oh, just a girl
Just... just a girl

Just one time around
She has little chance to make good
Treats 'till now she's young
But it can be taken away

Just one time around
It can be taken away
We all make mistakes

Hush my baby
Don't you cry
You're my little alibi
Oh please
I need some sleep
And I'll be taking you with me

Just a girl
Just a kid


That's more how I hear it - at least phonetically.

the problem I see with a phonetic translation is that

A--Eddie is notorious for mumbling

B--some of those lyrics either don't make sense

Feel red to beliefs
Dismay in progress

or, with the rose lyric, are a bit crass for him. At least that's how I hear it. What do others think?

I just listened to the Off Ramp performance for comparison, and I'm more convinced that the lyric in the subject of this thread is: "Distance of her life / Decided in the words". There's definitely an "s" in that last word, and the Off Ramp performance sounds a lot like "the words".

And that's what's tricky about figuring out the lyrics - there are certain hard sounds that rule out certain words. "Flows" fits in the fourth line, but whatever word is there ends in "ts". (Maybe "floats"?)

From the Off Ramp performance: the "feel red, true beliefs" line sounds like "feel ready to release". (Interesting switch to "invading" from "betraying".)

The hardest part about interpreting it is that the key words aren't firm. It could go in a couple of directions depending on what those words actually are. Minus some of the more abortion-suggestive words, and it sounds more like a "Why Go" / "Leash" kind of song that Ed wrote repeatedly in those days.

But, oddly, there must be actual lyrics of some form. The Off Ramp performance is almost identical to the studio version - it's not one of Ed's "off the top of the head" takes.

Sorry if I'm going on and on with this - for me, lyric transcription turns into a puzzle that's hard to put down.

I just realized I used to think 'woods'. It made the image even stronger, for me.

groetjes,
Mirella

I agree with this. More of the same, only warmed over and distinctly inferior.

1 star.