I need to spend a moment figuring out how to phrase this, but Waiting for Stevie feels like it describes what Eddie was searching for in Release.

I am so glad this didn't end up on Ed's solo album.

I LOVE that Mike starts his solo so fast and frenetic instead of long and drawn out. Matt meets him right there too!

I am so glad this didn't end up on Ed's solo album.

it takes the band a few seconds to re-calibrate. I love that. Adds to the live feel of the song

I just wanted to archive this part of my review in this thread.


Waiting for Stevie Part I: the Experience
The first time I really heard Waiting for Stevie I cried. I was overwhelmed. It felt like a miracle, a religious experience that cannot possibly be explained unless you felt it too, and in that case no explanation is really needed. But I’ll try.

Ten is the album that made Pearl Jam famous. It is the sound of Eddie Vedder. The true Eddie Vedder. The one spawned a million imitators, none of whom could come within a thousand miles of capturing the magic that was so uniquely his. It was an album full of songs that shouted from mountaintops, that stretched out into space, that felt not only powerful, but infinite. They were less songs than they were commandments, a message from the Gods carved into stone that contained within them the secrets of the universe. That was how it felt to fall in love, truly in love, with Pearl Jam in that era. To open yourself up, let them in, and then seal yourself around them so that you might always carry them with you.

And then, almost immediately, it was over, the band making a self-conscious choice to not write songs like that. Eddie making a self-conscious choice not to sound like that. Although there were some lingering echoes on Vs., by Vitalogy they were gone. Never to return. A new Pearl Jam was born. And it was the band I would spend the rest of my life with, that I would love with all my heart, that would go on to make the music that soundtracked the rest of my life. With every album their sound changed. And with every album Eddie changed. And I changed with them. There were albums and songs I adored. Some even more than Ten. There were albums and songs that were exactly what I needed at that moment. There were albums and songs that unfolded over time, or that would be set aside to be picked up later, when I was finally ready to receive them. But there has always been a part of me that felt cheated. I didn’t need every album to be Ten. I didn’t WANT every album to be Ten. But THAT version of the band, I wasn’t done with them. I wasn’t ready to be done with them. But it didn’t matter. They were gone. And they were never coming back.

I had read the early reviews of Dark Matter. I heard that Waiting for Stevie called to mind that 1992 Ten/Singles era of the band. But that was thirty-two years ago. The people who made that music were not the same. I was not the same. That alchemy of place and time and openness and need and moment was gone.

And so, I was not ready for this song. For what it meant. For where it took me. It was the fulfillment of a desperate promise I never knew was made. It was the exhalation of a breath I had been holding for thirty years.

The huge riff. The thick base. The drum roll. And then Eddie releases that glorious opening lyric, and his voice lifts off into those heights only he can command. And I am somewhere other than here. It’s not that it was unexpected. It’s that it was impossible. This was a song I would never hear. This was a song that could not exist. And somehow, somehow, now it does.

Waiting for Stevie does not sound like it belongs to Ten. It belongs to Dark Matter. It is still very much of this moment. But it captures, it evokes, it embodies everything that I felt back then and have been unconsciously chasing ever since. What Pearl Jam was. What Pearl Jam could be. What Pearl Jam is. Somehow in that moment, I was simultaneously the person I am at forty-seven, having lived a life I would not change, and sixteen once again, with an entire future in front of me, a world where anything and everything is still possible. I have never felt anything like it and must assume I never will again. But there are echoes of memory I will cherish every time they drift into focus. It was indescribable. What I wrote here is not enough. It was just a song. But somehow it was everything.

You either experienced this or you did not. If you did not, you cannot understand. If you did, you know.

Waiting For Stevie Part II: the song
Pearl Jam has many, many, many incredible songs. But there is a small cohort I think of as mission statements. These are not necessarily their best songs (though I think they are). These are the songs that, within the span of their runtime, encapsulate the entirety of what Pearl Jam is. Not their sound, but their purpose, their essence, their transformative potential. If someone asked you to explain Pearl Jam these are the songs you would pick. Alive. Breath. Rearview Mirror. Corduroy. Given to Fly. That’s really it. And now Waiting for Stevie. Twenty-six years after Given to Fly. Should be impossible. But here we are.

There is something of a frame story, but like Alive it’s important for what it evokes, rather than any narrative. It’s about a young girl, plagued by anxiety, self-doubt, uncertainty, who loses herself in music and in doing so finds herself. But really, it’s about legitimating your fears. Sharing them. Understanding that even if you experience them alone, the experience of them is shared, and that you are not alone. You have value. You have worth. You have power and voice. And you will, in time, discover them. Just hold on.

One of Eddie’s primary strengths, probably THE primary strength he has as a lyricist (and lyrics as the fusion of word and voice) is his ability to take simple declarative statements and invest them with the force of primal truths. They ring of prophecy, and at their best they feel powerful enough to reshape reality around them. And Waiting for Stevie begins with what is both my favorite lyric on the album and its most important

You can be loved by everyone, and not feel, not feel loved.

This is not only a perfect encapsulation of the experience of adolescence, it’s NOT a feeling we outgrow. This stays with us, always. This kind of uncertainty is not an adolescent experience. It is a human one. It is then. It is now. It is eternal.

The moment is followed with “you can be told by everyone, and not hear a word from above.” The same doubt. The same imposter syndrome. The truths we are told that we cannot experience, that we cannot feel. And the powerlessness that follows. This is who we are. All of us.

We look for fonts of meaning. To validate us. To empower us. To help us feel, for just those fleeting moments, like the people we wish we were. Could be. Are. And in Waiting for Stevie, and Dark Matter, and Pearl Jam, we find this in their music.

Swallowed up by the sound
Cutting holes in the clouds
Finds herself in the song
Hears her own voice rising

The imagery of music as something celestial, something that descends upon us, and in the process lifts us up. “Finds herself in the song. Hears her own voice rising.” It’s not just the empowerment in that moment. It’s the connection. It’s the ascendence she achieved for herself, through what she felt in the music, and the people who made it, and the ones who share her love of it. As each person lifts their own voice they carry others with them. It is a collective act of self-creation. If you’re reading this, you’ve probably been to a Pearl Jam concert. You understand exactly what her experience is. It’s yours.

Later,

You can relate, but still can’t stop
Or conquer the fear you are what you’re not.

The self-defeating, cyclical fear that you are less than. That you are diminished. That best part of yourself is a lie, rather than the core of who you are. And again, delivered with such iron clad conviction, soaring out into infinity, and sweeping up all of us along the way. This is her song and story. This is our song and story.

Other lyrics explore similar dynamics. The fear that you are less than your potential, your value, your worth. The need to love, to trust, to have something to give and to know that it will be received, and that it will matter. It’s Eddie’s most emotionally resonant lyric coupled with his most powerful performance in a long, long time.

But everyone is incredible. This only works because Jeff’s foundation is so stable, because Mike and Stone’s guitars are huge enough to carry the sentiment, because Matt has the strength to power it forward. Eddie’s voice can only soar because the band provides the lift.

The song structure is unconventional. Almost entirely a hybrid bridge/chorus. There is a ghost of a bridge before Waiting for Stevie essentially resets for a second half that gets overtaken by a massive Mike McCready solo. It is a messy transition, and it takes a few seconds for the song to realign to what Mike is playing. But it works because it is so obviously swept up in that perfect moment. It is authentic. It is real. It poured out of him, not as an act of craft, but of necessity. The emotional punctuation of an already overloaded emotional experience. And as this is happening Eddie’s mantra flows out and embeds itself underneath.

You can be loved. You can be love.

First, the assurance that you are not alone. And second, that what you have to give is so much more than you know.


Dark Matter feels like a live album, and Waiting for Stevie is a perfect distillation of what is transcendent about Pearl Jam’s live experience. It is the first time Pearl Jam has written a song that you could plausibly imagine replacing Alive to close in a set. It is everything. It is the first time you fist bumped during Alive’s solo. It is the first time you closed your eyes as Eddie sang the opening notes of Release. It is your first ‘it’s okay’ Daughter tag. Your first Betterman sing along. The first time you screamed ‘Hello’. The first time you heard Given to Fly accelerate. The first time you lost yourself in a Rearviewmirror jam. The first time you sang along during the climax of Black. A lived experience. A shared experience. A perfect experience.

The heart of Waiting for Stevie is the heart of Dark Matter, and the heart of Pearl Jam. The elemental reciprocity of love.


Interlude
There is a beautiful interlude that follows Waiting for Stevie. A badly needed moment to take a breath as Eddie sings “Be mighty. Be humble. Be mighty humble.” A reflection on the power and privilege and responsibility of having a voice and having the opportunity to share it.

I think sonically, one thing that connects this to those earlier songs, even if the sound isn't too similar is the pace of the song. Most of those early anthemic songs, like Alive and Breath, weren't ballads per se, but they were at that tempo. They've done things like Unthought Known and stuff at various points, but they haven't attempted a slow anthem in a very long time.

That really is a lovely piece of writing, Stip. Thanks so much for all your writing on this album so far -- it has been a pleasure to read.

thank you. that means double coming from you

That's a really good point. There is something deliberate about those songs that added to the impact. A weight to each moment, that the playing and singing could sustain and justify.

After Dissident, where else does this really appear until now?

I think sonically, one thing that connects this to those earlier songs, even if the sound isn't too similar is the pace of the song. Most of those early anthemic songs, like Alive and Breath, weren't ballads per se, but they were at that tempo. They've done things like Unthought Known and stuff at various points, but they haven't attempted a slow anthem in a very long time.