Pearl Jam and the Beginning of Wisdom
I love my CDs but if I had to give them all away and keep just one band I think it would be Pearl Jam. (Ask me again next month though.) While they disappeared from the mainstream while you first-years were still in nappies, it's their work since then that has seen them mature into what I'm happy to call, “The Greatest Rock Band Of Our Time” (hereafter referred to as TGRBOOT).
Like a good fan, I'm starting to build my collection of TGRBOOT trivia. And the results have intrigued me. Some examples: Their original and current drummer is Matt Cameron, and they cycled through four drummers while Cameron played with that other Seattle band, Soundgarden. I remember watching Rage in the early nineties and noticing that Pearl Jam didn't make music videos. In the years 2000 and 2001 they released 72 double-disc albums—one of each of their concerts so that fans could have sound-desk-quality mementos. When they learnt that the American government only keeps music on vinyl in the Library of Congress, they decided to release all their fan-club-only Christmas singles on that indestructible medium. (The Library of Congress have obviously never heard the phrase “like a scratched record”.)
But TGRBOOT, who almost made it as Mookie Blaylock1 but decided on Pearl Jam while recording Ten, have intrigued me for non-musical reasons as well. They don't interview often but their actions speak loud enough: this is a band with strong beliefs in justice, compassion and generosity.
Their social justice record is impressively diverse. They're regulars at benefit concerts for the Bridge School for kids with “severe speech and physical impairments”. Freedom for Tibet, self-defense information for women, abolition of the death penalty, health care for uninsured musicians, digestive disease education, and preventing the building of telescopes on sacred Apache sites are just a few of their interests. In 1994 they took on Ticketmaster and filed an anti-trust lawsuit against them, claiming they held a monopoly on concert venues. In an effort to keep their ticket prices below $20 they toured in non-Ticketmaster venues until they were forced to admit defeat when the lawsuit was dropped and the out-of-the-way alternative venues weren't working out.
As for generosity to fans, a free concert to 30,000 fans in 1992 was just the beginning. Over their 13 year career they've played stacks of surprise shows, allowed radio stations to play whole concerts and albums for free and then, of course, there's the 72 bootleg releases which they sold to fans on their website for $10.
All of which makes me think: why? What makes The Greatest Rock Band Of Our Time act this way? Even beyond their public generosity and concern for justice, why have they cleaned up their personal lives and traded drug use for the gym? I have no doubt that it's genuine—it's not to make the kids buy more albums.
When questioned about their 5½ minute single Nothing As It Seems, singer Ed Vedder said: “If we'd have a song with some earworm quality and great hook lines as a single, a lot of people would think the album is like the single and they'd be disappointed. OK, a lot of people would like that, especially the record companies wouldn't mind if we'd sell more albums this way. But for us, it just wouldn't be right. It's not the way we do it. It's not Pearl Jam.” The interviewer's next question was, “So what is Pearl Jam?”
It's a fine question. Looking through their lyrics there's little clue as to any philosophical underpinnings to their beliefs. If you were on a “prove that such-and-such is a Christian band” mission, the best you could do is Cameron's “You Are” from Riot Act. You've heard of songs about God that could be sung to your girlfriend, well how about songs about your girlfriend that could be sung to God?
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Shout to the Lord By Darlene Zschech My comfort, my Shelter |
You Are By Matt Cameron You are a tower |
Silliness aside, it seems that when you scrape the surface there's nothing there. At least nothing they're revealing. It's just post-modern moralism, perhaps best summed up by another Riot Act lyric, “There's no wrong or right / but I'm sure there's good and bad”.
But even so, it's when looking at people like Pearl Jam that it's hard to believe the claim in Proverbs that “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom”. They seem to have so much right. You could argue that they're “devoted to good works”, Titus-style. It's looking at people like Pearl Jam that makes us wonder whether God is all that fair, after all. Why should people like this not be judged on their good record? Why shouldn't they be saved when there's such bad Christians to compare them with?
I think that, like in Jesus' parable,2 the important thing is where the house is built. From many angles, Pearl Jam have a beautiful house. But it's what you can't see—the foundations—that matter. The house built on the sand may have a better colour scheme than the house on the rock next door but when the flood comes, the colour scheme isn't going to help.
Instead of fearing God and laying their good works on that foundation they've set up camp against him and each act of kindness is another piece of slime for the tower of Babel.
As harsh as that judgment sounds, I do have compassion for them. And God does too. So I'm going to pray for them to be saved. Who knows, you could be listening to Pearl Jam in heaven.
Notes:
1 The real and as yet unchanged name of an NBA player.
2 At the end of Matthew 7. I'm just reusing the illustration, Jesus' point was different.
Ben Beilharz [ben@ecuwollongong.org]
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