PJ20 - working title: why i love pearl jam with all my heart

if you do not listen to pearl jam...well you should.  but if you listen and the music is just not your sound... okay.  when my friends don't love pearl jam it is a bit like when a guest says 'no thanks' to a slice of homemade chocolate cake.  at first i'm a little hurt, i mean, i did hope we could enjoy this together.  but then i'm secretly glad because there is more cake for me to quietly savor alone in my pajamas on the couch later.


this month, the members of pearl jam are celebrating 20 years of being a band.  that is an enormous feat for any band and i am happy for them and so grateful for 20 years of music that turns me inside out every time i listen.

this also means that i have loved something for twenty years. TWENTY years.  it's not like they were an established band that i started listening to along the way. i have been along for the whole 20 year ride. (okay, i wasn't in seattle for the formation of the group - i was 15 and probably at the mall, but...) i have been an unwavering supporter from the instant i heard Ten.

when i listen to Ten now i still feel like that 15 year old girl, laying on the floor next to my best friend's jam box listening to "Alive" for the first time.  then it was a battle cry for our angsty youth.  now it has become an anthem for the strong, grown woman in me.  i've listened to that song countless times and it has meant so many different, but all very real, things to me over the years.  Twenty years....

that means i've loved pearl jam longer than i've loved my husband.  or photography.  there are not a lot of things in my life that have been constant for 20 years.  my family, a small handful of friends, and this music.  

i am sure every person has music that feels like truth to them.  i hope everyone does.  for me, there is nothing that feels real and full and true like Pearl Jam.  their music has been the soundtrack for my life the last 20 years.  my friends would say that is because i listen to pearl jam all the time.  and that is valid. but i am always listening because amazingly, the music has changed as my life has changed.  it always fits. every album resonates with me  - resounds in a different place within me.  this music makes me feel.  it catapults me into my past, but it remains relevant to me right now.

listening to pearl jam is not just remembering what it felt like to be a teenager.  it is that too, but so much more.  this week andy and i went to see PJ20.  it's a cameron crowe film documenting the 20 year life of the band.  it played in select locations for one night only.   as i watched, i was moved by the version of "release" included in the film.  in an instant i got chills and my eyes brimmed with tears. i was transported to a sleeping bag on the screen porch of a lake house in 1994 with my closest friends.  we were all singing at the top of our lungs. celebrating the end of high school, and already missing each other.  i see myself singing along to it in college in ohio, in my little jeep on the cold freeway, very alone.  i remember singing it quietly to sleeping baby greyson so many nights while rocking him in our still house at 3am.  i hear the audience around me singing at live shows in houston, cleveland, detroit, austin.  i feel what it means to me in this moment, for who i am now, struggling to be honestly me all the time.  and i know this song will evolve with me, i will hear it with new ears again and again.

i love the music, and i claim the band with great pride.  i am proud that this band is not afraid to be political.  i believe in them for making decisions about their business based on their ethics, not just their wallets.  i love that when they play live they look lost in the moment with each other, they enjoy playing together and as live shows go, there is none better.  i celebrate that jeff and stone set out to create a band that would last, and it has.

i considered ending this post with an exhaustive timeline of pearl jam music moments in my life.  i decided that one: no one really wants to read that, and two: some things are just for me and those who already know.  i will share three that are very special:

"rise" - was the first song asher ever heard.  it and the rest of the Into the Wild album (an eddie vedder solo project, not really pearl jam) were our music of choice for his entrance into the world.

"it's okay" - a dead moon cover song on a live album, is a song greyson and asher had heard a hundred times.  i was using it like a prayer back then.  i was having a hard time, our family was making a lot of big changes.  for some reason in the car this one day, they both starting singing.  just belting out the words at the top of their lungs.  i was sobbing and beaming through my tears. it really felt like a sign to me and i could not contain myself when i heard their tiny voices shouting "this is our chance, this is our lives, this is our planet we're standing on.  use your choice, use your voice, you can save our tomorrows now.  this is our plea, this is our need, this is our time of standing free!"  for all the world i wish i had it recorded.  here is the second best version, you can hear eddie sing it instead:

"unthought known" - i thought i didn't love this song,  until i heard it live at austin city limits.  shortly after, i found out i was pregnant and it became my anthem for Quinn, even before i knew him.  "see the path cut by the moon, for you to walk on.  see the waves on distant shores, awaiting your arrival.  dream the dreams of other men, you will be no one's rival..."  this is that acl performance and i'm in that crowd somewhere, holding onto andy and singing.

what is the music of your life?  i hope you'll share it.  if you don't already have music that means this much to you, i hope you find it. 




(thanks jeff, stone, mike, matt, and eddie. for all of it.)