I do really like this song's bridge, I feel like it really tries to take off there

hey there! how are things?

I love this song. Not quite five stars because it lacks the depth and mood of their very best work, but four stars very easily

I flat out like this song. It’s like one Pearl Jam tune showed up to the convention in horny cosplay, and everyone else was scandalized. It’s an exercise in getting to know how the REARVIEWMIRRRRRRROOOOOAAAARRRRR guys would have soundtracked a Revenge of the Nerds triathlon training sequence.

It’s not like they wrote a hundred of these and you sit through them every night. It’s stupid, it thinks it’s beautiful, and it’s fine.

I agree with this. I love the lyrics.

I can dig it, but this isn't really my take. Starting with S/T, Ed made a hard turn towards the chest-thumping anthems of Ten, but now with a more positive outlook seasoned by experience, wisdom, personal loss, etc...

Life Wasted is probably my favorite version of this Ed, but The Fixer is up there for its heart-on-the-sleeveness, plus I really, really dig the off-kilter pogo-stick power chords that open the song.

when I'm in the market for great deals on craftsman tools i think of this song

But if Fixer is a look at toxic masculinity and not a chest thumper how do you feel about it?

Delete “not” from this sentence. Also then it describes half the first album.

I've always looked at it as the way Ed once positioned it (I think in a Backspacer-era interview): That it's about a man's need to try to fix things, rather than listen or just be with a partner when things get difficult.

I know that Ed has often given contrasting meanings behind certain songs, so I don't think this particular meaning is any more official than another, but it's the one that's always rang true for me.

Anyway, that doesn't really count as "toxic masculinity," and I struggle to see that particular reading of the song. But if it's there to be read, then that's supercool -- a deeper look at the dark side of men, wrapped up in a slick pop song, is often great. The Police did it, The Squeeze did it, Foster the People...Love that shit. Just don't necessarily see it in The Fixer, but I could be convinced.

The lyrics get unfairly criticized with this song. Their "true" meaning can be read either way, which is a major strength to me.

For me, at least, it is hard not to hear Backspacer as a something of a political album in its self-conscious shedding of weight, its optimism, the lack of anger, the sense that there is room to relax and breathe. It follows three very heavy albums that are, in turn, their most claustrophobic and alienated, weary and resigned, and angry and righteous. It's hard not see some of the millennial feelings that followed Obama into office, especially for someone with Ed's politics. And so I've always read this song pretty straight. It's about capturing that moment when you believe that no matter how bad something is it can always get better, that anything is possible. There is a heart on sleeve optimism to it. I think the lyrical construction - the 'if...then' (or really 'when...I') and bad/good', passive/active, past/future dyads build nicely and emphasize those themes.

I hadn't thought of it in these terms before, but McP is right. It kind of is a montage song coming out of the Bush years that Eddie was smart enough to depoliticize.

There is absolute space in a catalog for a song like this. It is probably a necessary edition.

This is a good description of both what I love about the S/T -> run of albums, and what I find myself often missing from the No Code -> Riot Act run (and it's probably not surprising that many of my favorite songs from that era are the ones that come closest to this)

I really hate the line "what's saved could be one last lifetime". Reads as pure meter-stuffing

it’s fine. I like the sentiment and it packs a lot into one phrase. Not his most elegant work but it gets the job done. he has greater grammatical/meter stuffing sins

its a matt cameron line but I want for to lay down is the worst offender

I agree. At least, on its own. It's not great either way but it gains some appeal in the context of the whole album which has a lot of death/dying/mortality discussion.

Cool. We're basically on the same page then. I think my read just leans darker and less optimistic than yours.

I kinda agree with Stip in terms of Backspacer being more uplifting and not an angry album. Its still super dark sometimes, songs like The fixer, Johnny Guitar, Speed Of Sound, hell even Just Breathe and The End have pretty dark moments.