I've come around to pretty much everything about this song except the weird anti-climax of "satisfaction"

How many shows will they make it before Ed does the call and response in the middle of it?

I feel like it would have been cool if they'd given "gave up on satisfaction" the "obeys, listens, kisses, loves" treatment and buried it deep in the mix, with some distortion or something; but they won't do that cool shit ever again

It’s gonna happen. That little breakdown in the middle seems like it was written for just such a thing.

BUT, I'm listening again, and maybe that's the whole point, and maybe that's just something they've always done? right from "Alive", which has a horrendously dark and traumatic narrative of various abuse, and then opens up into a potentially affirming, celebratory "I'm Still Alive" in the chorus; the levity is of course still paired with, and grounded by, the same darkness (as long as the abuser is still alive, the abuse can continue), but we know Ed, and we know the tension between hurt and healing was entirely intentional; maybe this is a formula that Ed felt was never broke, so why fix it? it's just got more naked and transparent -- and less angrily confessional -- as he's got older; so, we had "I've faced it, a life wasted, and I'm never going back again!", then "fight to get it back again!", and now this

I love everything about this song, but agree that around 1:45 it gets better. Still, "gave up on satisfaction" brings a smile to my face every time he says it. Always has.

This song is fucking rad. I love it. 17/13

Holy crap I HATE when he does this. Talk about cringe-worthy.

I know we are ranking these songs against their common track number, but what songs would we compare WES with? Severed Hand? MitS? GSMF? Lightning Bolt? I know this might be pushing it, but I'm putting this one up there in the category of Corduroy and RVM. This one keeps climbing for me. It's my favorite Ed rocker since Insignificance. Every choice in this one couldn't have been better.

Do you mean what song is it most similar to? Good question. There isn't an obvious antecedent in the catalog. Some of the uptempo L-bolt rockers probably come closest (Getaway and Lightning Bolt).

I'm with that take. I thought it was a clunky part of the song, initially, and I do agree it's a kind of low stakes word, but I think the message he's going for is precisely that the bar has been lowered that far - mere satisfaction. Does that make sense?

I never understood why this bothered people during a live show. It gets the crowd fired up and involved, and I suspect the band can feed on that energy as well.

I think so and I like what you're thinking; so, those that say "everything has been said" have given up on even the simplest and most mundane of pleasures? and I guess the verses are unpacking how that happens, societally; we're desensitized to satisfaction by being trained to be cynical by proselytizers, propagandists and double-speakers

Perfectly said. And those themes are all explored throughout the album. Jibes with what Josh Evans said about that song being kind of a mission statement for the album.

I'm down, I'll keep listening with this in mind

I'm pretty sure every lyrics page is wrong on this. It says "Room to tomb and cradle to grave". I think that's "womb to tomb". Which I wouldn't know if they don't always say it in West Side Story but it makes much more sense and matches cradle to grave.

"Room to tomb" makes sense, too, though, as the cradle would be contained within the room as a grave can be contained within a tomb.

Pearl Jam lyrics pages are famously accurate

Well....sort of...but a room isn't very specific. Womb is a much better lyric and Im pretty sure that's what he's saying. Both are idioms that mean "birth to death". Room to tomb means nothing.