That doesn’t answer the question at all.

It's empathetic in that the performance is intended to enable you as the listener to identify with the experiences of the singer and through his pain experience your own and find your own catharsis.


You're not convinced by the experience (in the same way that Unemployable is intended to be empathetic but I am not convinced by it), which is probably because of what you said earlier.


I went through an extremely painful breakup in college with a girl I had intended to marry in that naive, youthful way, and I can assure you that everything about the climax of black felt absolutely true at the time

If you are in a life-changing breakup, then songs about breakups/lost love can absolutely help, or make you identify with the song.

A good comparison for Black (in terms of a similar song and how black elevates itself) is Total Eclipse of the Heart. It's a song I actually quite like for all its melodramatic absurdity, but at no point listening to it do I believe that Bonnie Tyler is actually heartbroken. I am 100% convinced that Eddie is, and that his pain is somehow mirroring mine, or that I am in some weird way directly experiencing his.

That doesn’t mean Eddie is being empathetic. It means you’re being empathetic.

Black is basically this guy in song form:

in My Tree is also about an important subject.

I wave to all my friends
They don’t seem to notice me
All their eyes trained on the street
Sidewalk cigarettes and scenes

Up here so high, I start to shake
Up here so high, the sky I scrape
I'm so high I hold just one breath deep within my chest
Just like innocence

I remember when
I swore I knew everything
They say knowledge is a tree
It's growing up just like me

Good convo guys, but IMT is so much better than Black (which is ok I suppose, but just nowhere near what IMT is).

BTW, I’m gonna go ahead and say that TEOTH is a better song than Black. Vedder WISHES he had written a line with the poetic panache of “I don’t know what to do and I’m always in the dark, we’re living in a powder keg and giving off sparks.”

I've got no problem with the theme. I just don't think there's a whole lot to take away from this. There's no moment (for me) when the lyrics enable me to look at a familiar experience in a new way, or perfectly crystallize what I've always known and could never quite express, or anything like that. There's an unearned air of profundity to it, although it is not quite as over the top as present tense or self-indulgent as Off He Goes.

fun fact - this is my favorite song to sing karaoke to.

What is TEOTH?

Bonnie Tyler

Total Eclipse of the Heart

Oh,

I'm not really sure I'd say Black or In My Tree are lyrical masterpieces (and that's generally true of Eddie's lyrics). Both critiques have a point, whether it's In My Tree's grasps for profundity or Blacks' mushy woe-is-me-ness (that second verse, when you stop to think about the words, is pretty RAWK). I also think both songs are 'empathetic' in their lyric and approach to the listener.

However, they're both elevated by the performances and the construction of the song itself, and In My Tree goes places and instills emotions that Black never did for me. It may be one of the reasons I particularly love live versions of Black a bit past the early era of the band. When you get to the 2000 versions, you start to hear some scars on the song which help it immeasurably.

the second verse is a bit much. But the intro is pretty beautiful, the chorus is great, and the outro is incredibly powerful (both the pleading "I know someday..." and the emotional breakdown that follows

I'd say the chorus is probably the best part, if a bit overwrought. I think like many of the early songs, it was saved by the intensity of the musical performance and the power of Eddie's vocal. Still a great song; just because the vocals don't sit well on the page doesn't mean it doesn't work better in context.

Yuppppp

In My Tree is an amazing song. I don't really give a shit how "deep" it is philosophically. It has tremendous emotional depth and breadth. Sometimes simplicity is profound. It doesn't need to explore unknown depths to be powerful.

Tell that to Eddie