"Leatherman" is a delight, and if asked to pick a single Pearl Jam relic to represent the fullness of what this band once meant to me in the most concise, compact format possible, that "Given to Fly" CD single would almost certainly be it -- I am not sure I ever engaged with something as excitedly as I did with that item during January, 1998, and those three songs still hit an emotional sweet spot (especially when presented in that sequence) that little else in the PJ discography does for me. Some of it is simple nostalgia, but some of it is that those three songs -- isolated from the general context of Yield -- really amplify Yield's sense of peace and mindfulness in a format that sidesteps the cynicism of something like "Do the Evolution" and/or the triteness of something like "In Hiding" (both songs I love, but which nonetheless inject different flavors into the overall program). There is no other PJ single that feels as much to me like a carefully assembled short-form EP as these three songs do, not even Merkinball.

I think I've said this before but "Leatherman" reminds me of Fables of the Reconstruction-era REM, both in the musical/compositional sense (just imagine Stipe singing that melody and Buck picking out those guitar chords) and in the kind of part-fact-part-legend-style character sketch (reminiscent of "Driver 8" or "Auctioneer" or something like that). It was the first Pearl Jam song I remember feeling lighthearted and whimsical without seeming like a joke, and I'm not sure I really remember one that's struck that same balance so effectively since.

Another weird thing that unreasonably endears "Leatherman" to me is the fact that, at the time it came out, there was a kid in our neighborhood who, through a series of nonsensical inside jokes that to the extent I can remember them would make no sense to attempt to reiterate here, somehow found himself saddled with the sarcastic nickname "man of the land." We would always say, "Of course so and so does this, because he's" -- cue stupid voice -- "a man of the land!" I will never forget the eruption of laughter, listening to this song for the first time with those people and hearing Eddie sing that phrase. I still feel a light tug on the heartstrings every time I hear it.

Sometimes it's ridiculous to think how many songs have completely inane things like that cause them to stick with you.

"Leatherman" is probably the closest Pearl Jam have ever come to writing a genuine folk song--part family history, part myth-making bullshit, topically it's one of very few instances of Eddie simply absorbing a snippet (or multiple snippets) of random trivia and translating it into song just for the sake of the story. Eddie really likes his songs to have meanings and messages and this one doesn't have anything resembling either, yet because of the gaps our brains must fill in on their own in order to process what the distant past (the 1880's for instance) must have been like, it has this dusty sense of mystery to it that I've always found unlike anything else in their catalog. It's folk music of the "Fables of the Reconstruction" variety.