Feeling Wider Than Awake: Review of Eddie Vedder's Earthling

Eddie Vedder has got to be tired of talking about death. Still, it seems like interviewers want to talk to him about little else. From his father’s passing to the tragic deaths and suicides of so many of his peers, most writers appear over-eager to ask why Eddie Vedder, is, remarkably, still alive.

 

So what does Eddie have to say?

A lot. And it’s hard not to take the opening track of his new solo album, Earthling, as an answer.

 

It’s a song that builds, in a playful, rhythmic, skin-prickling way, before swirling, rocketing into space, Eddie’s rich voice soaring in a hopeful refrain. We are, he tells us, Invincible … When we love.   

 

Eddie has the answer to the sometimes-trudging weight of life, and he’s here to share it with all of us. “Invincible” is a song about how love makes life not just possible, but breathtakingly beautiful.

 

Life can be unbearable, the song acknowledges. But then, here comes a wave, a joyous crescendo of music and metaphors, of oceans and cosmos. And just when it seems like the music might burst into resplendent beams of light, Eddie reminds you,

 

Who could ask for more?

 

And so begins Earthling, a sometimes-dark, sometimes-funny, gorgeous and powerful album that explores themes of lightness, love, longing, grief, and utter contentment.

 

Obviously, Eddie Vedder is no longer the aching, angry, angst-ridden rocker he was in the 90s. And yet, if you’ve kept up with him over the years, this transformation has been neither surprising nor sudden. This is the musician who’s kept tens of thousands of us rapt, night after night, at sold-out concerts in cities around the world. He’s sung about abuse, heartache, homelessness, suicide, and serial killers. But from the beginning, even his darkest lyrics have centered on themes of dignity, empathy, and compassion. His delivery is different now, but the messages are familiar.

 

Eddie is a master storyteller, and as usual, he seems to have sympathy for the characters in Earthling — even the troubled man in “Power of Right,” whom he describes as Scared / Living in fear / An itchy trigger finger / a clown in his ear. But his empathy remains ever-rooted with the underdog. That includes a fallen elephant in the jarring, angry “Good and Evil,” in which Eddie hopes a hunter gets what she deserves.

 

Earthling’s A-List collaborators have been written about elsewhere — Ringo Starr, Stevie Wonder, and Elton John, to name a few. Then there’s “Long Way,” a song that sounds so uncannily like Tom Petty, you may believe there was one more collaborator — dialing in from the heavens.

 

All in all, Earthling is an incredible album to rock out with, to take a deep dive with, to decipher its many puzzles and pieces. More than 30 years after the release of Pearl Jam’s first alum, Eddie Vedder is still delivering bellowing baritones, poetic lyrics, and absolutely outstanding music.

 

I take the line from “The Haves” to heart, when he promises:

 

I know we got / A lot of life, life to live yet.

 

I’ll trust you on that one, Eddie, and I’ll savor what’s yet to be. Thank you.