by Marvin Phythian
It's late Friday night after a dismal England performance in a nil, nil snore draw with Scotland. I'm at the bar at my local tennis club. It's way after 2am, we've been drinking in honour of an old friend who's no longer with us. I've been in charge of Spotify for far too long. My American friend, Eden, turns to me and says "So you know the story about Pearl Jam's Momma-Son trilogy, right!" I answer him. I do not. The only interesting fact I know about Pearl Jam is that Eddie Vedder's grandmother was called Pearl and was married to an American Indian who made Jam!
I listen intently for twenty minutes or so as Eden gives me an ongoing narrative lyric after lyric as we listen to each song in order. This is Pearl Jam, the legendary band I'm going to see next year and I know these songs. But I do not know this! But now I do and so should you.
The Momma-Son trilogy is an almost cult like story about 3 Pearl Jam Songs; Alive, Once and Footsteps. I find various interpretations on the internet until finally my life for this article is made far easier as I stumble across excerpts from a 1993 Rolling Stone article with Pearl Jam singer Eddie Vedder about the Momma-Son trilogy. Although I write about this discovery with excitement as Eddie suggests, it is indeed a dark twisted trilogy.
Act 1 - Alive (Track 3 from the album Ten).
"Everybody writes about it like it's a life-affirmation, thing -- I'm really glad about that," he says with a rueful laugh. "It's a great interpretation. But 'Alive' is... it's torture. Which is why it's fucked up for me. Why I should probably learn how to sing another way. It would be easier. It's... it's too much."
Vedder continues: "The story of the song is that a mother is with a father and the father dies. It's an intense thing because the son looks just like the father. The son grows up to be the father, the person that she lost. His father's dead, and now this confusion, his mother, his love, how does he love her, how does she love him? In fact, the mother, even though she marries somebody else, there's no one she's ever loved more than the father. You know how it is, first loves and stuff. And the guy dies. How could you ever get him back? But the son. He looks exactly like him. It's uncanny. So she wants him. The son is oblivious to it all. He doesn't know what the fuck is going on. He's still dealing, he's still growing up. He's still dealing with love, he's still dealing with the death of his father. All he knows is 'I'm still alive' -- those three words, that's totally out of burden."
Elvis' "Suspicious Minds" blasts on the jukebox as Vedder continues. "Now the second verse is 'Oh she walks slowly into a young man's room... I can remember to this very day... the look... the look.' And I don't say anything else. And because I'm saying, 'The look, the look' everyone thinks it goes with 'on her face.' It's not on her face. The look is between her legs. Where do you go with that? That's where you came from."
"But I'm still alive. I'm the lover that's still alive. And the whole conversation about 'You're still alive, she said' And his doubts: 'Do I deserve to be? Is that the question?' Because he's fucked up forever!
Vedder continues: "The story of the song is that a mother is with a father and the father dies. It's an intense thing because the son looks just like the father. The son grows up to be the father, the person that she lost. His father's dead, and now this confusion, his mother, his love, how does he love her, how does she love him? In fact, the mother, even though she marries somebody else, there's no one she's ever loved more than the father. You know how it is, first loves and stuff. And the guy dies. How could you ever get him back? But the son. He looks exactly like him. It's uncanny. So she wants him. The son is oblivious to it all. He doesn't know what the fuck is going on. He's still dealing, he's still growing up. He's still dealing with love, he's still dealing with the death of his father. All he knows is 'I'm still alive' -- those three words, that's totally out of burden."
Elvis' "Suspicious Minds" blasts on the jukebox as Vedder continues. "Now the second verse is 'Oh she walks slowly into a young man's room... I can remember to this very day... the look... the look.' And I don't say anything else. And because I'm saying, 'The look, the look' everyone thinks it goes with 'on her face.' It's not on her face. The look is between her legs. Where do you go with that? That's where you came from."
"But I'm still alive. I'm the lover that's still alive. And the whole conversation about 'You're still alive, she said' And his doubts: 'Do I deserve to be? Is that the question?' Because he's fucked up forever!
Yes it really does mean that. The mother falls in love with the son because he looks like his dead dad and then becomes his lover... This is a more subtle yet more twisted inverted version of Jim Morrison's/The Door's The End only in this story Freudian fantasy becomes incestual abuse!
Before we get to Song 2 I should point out there is a connecting song part in the live video attached of when PJ performed this as a trilogy for the first time called I'm not crazy.
"What you did to me aint right....I aint crazy"
Act 2 - Once (Track 1 on Ten confusing heh?)
The abused becomes the abuser.
Vedder continues describing the tormented protagonist in the second song Once. .
"So now he doesn't know how to deal with it. So what does he do, he goes out killing people -- that was [the song] 'Once.'
So to spell it out he becomes a serial killer. Here are some of the lyrics:
I admit it, what's to say?
I'll relive it, without painHm, back-street lover on the side of the road
I gotta bomb in my temple that is gonna explode
I got a sixteen gauge buried under my clothes, I play
Once upon a time I could control myself
Once upon a time I could lose myself, yeah.
On the live version Vedder adds "I've got nothing to say but guilty"
So there you have it, as so often happens, the abused becomes the abuser he has a psychotic distaste towards those women who sexually advance towards him just like his mum did.
Act 3 Footsteps (The Execution and B side to Jeremy on the UK release)
The protagonist is now in prison on death row and full of blame for one person.
Don't even think about reachin' me, I won't be home
Don't even think about stoppin' by, don't think of me at all
I did, what I had to do, if there was a reason, it was you.
Don't even think about stoppin' by, don't think of me at all
I did, what I had to do, if there was a reason, it was you.
Back to Eddie Vedder:
"And 'Footsteps,' the final song of the trilogy [it was released as a U.K. B side to 'Jeremy'], that's when he gets executed. That's what happens. The Green River killer... and in San Diego, there was another prostitute killer down there. Somehow I related to that. I think that happens more than we know. It's a modern way of dealing with a bad life."
Then he smiles as he says, "I'm just glad I became a songwriter."
Then he smiles as he says, "I'm just glad I became a songwriter."
A great trilogy, a dark story crawling with malevolence. By accounts on forums a panacea for peope who've been through their own tough times.
Ten is one of the great rock albums of all time, no question. It is right near the top of the albums I'd like to get if I can ever afford a first pressing. Interestingly the only vinyl pressings when it was released in 1991 were in Spain, Brazil and Greece. The UK and US only released on CD and cassette. The UK only pressed it on a picture disc a year later and the US didn't press it on Vinyl until 1994! If anyone has any of those for sale and offers payment plans for a poor person, please let me know!
Here's the first time they played it live in all it's glory, have a listen, it's impressive:
The problem now is that I'm seeing them live next year in London and they don't often play the trilogy. Here's hoping.