not a complaint- just an observation (i really like the song) but this is definitely the song where Ed’s vowel abuse is most apparent

I must really be softening up in my old age, because Alright and Buckle Up are my two favorite songs on the album behind DotC

Really good songs though.

Love the atmosphere of this one. The backward guitar flourishes are wonderful.

This singing and lyrics are just so diazepam sinister. You have this gorgeous music and gentle background lullaby "bah bah bahs" wedded to really unsettling lyrics and mogadon singing, like he's downed a few whiskies and pills because he's done something awful.

I think it's their best song in over a decade

me too

It's certainly up there

I don't agree but it makes me happy to see Jorge and Chud agree.

It's a lovely song. One of the album's high points.

Don't know if I love it or hate it. Would love to know the meaning behind it.

Child murders elderly parent.

“Now be cursed and banned from the ground that has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood at your hands,” (Genesis 4.11) coupled with, “I got blood, blood on my hands, the stain of a human,” makes for intriguing theater for the neurons on this listen of Buckle Up. For the figural Cain, who literally murders his brother in the raw text, but moreover represents the transfer of sometimes negative genealogical traits from parent to child, reality sets in the morning after.

“I finally awoke to my mother's wrath. Call lights, bed sores, and sponge baths,” equate to the cradle-to-grave punishment we endure from our passed-on transgressions. “Firstly do no harm, then put your seatbelt on,” represents humanity’s fall from Grace, and the mad rush to re-achieve. “Buckle up.”

“The drapes pull back, reveal her wound, her boy on her lap, a murderer groomed.” The young Cain and Eve must’ve had quite the conversation. “Antiquities lost, lost to the Nile,” parallels, “He drove out the man [and] placed the cherubim, and a sword flaming and turning to guard the way to the tree of life. (Genesis 3.24) Within just a couple generations of man’s inception, “A sudden slip, a fall on the time,” spells the collective fate.

Other than some car crash analogy, I can’t think of a dreamier complement to Stone’s Beatlesque triplet ballad. Dark but true. “Firstly do no harm, then put your seatbelt on. Buckle up.”

It pains me to admit, but I really hate this song.

That's a shame. Great song. For modern Pearl Jam it's about as good as it gets.

Something to do with the combination of the cloying, sing-songy quality of the music and those awful and disturbing lyrics ('bed sores and sponge baths').

It's maybe the only Pearl Jam song I find genuinely unpleasant, like it's tripping some kind of disgust reflex.

The lyrics are indeed quite interesting. How do you interpret them? What is the song about?

Team Spenno

Trag, come on.

Jorge knows.