Understanding Even Flow

Some additional thoughts/corrections: 1) Donate to Everyone In: everyoneinla.org/get-involved/donate/ 2) Most of the accounts I found of Vedder's story at the Home Show prominently featured the part where his friend Eddie died, but that seems to me to be missing the point. He spends a long time discussing their friendship, how they met, who he was, and even discusses a previous time that he thought he'd lost him but then found out he'd moved. He acknowledges Eddie's passing, but only briefly and only at the very end. It's a story about his life, not his death, so I focused my summary on that. Reducing it to "Eddie Vedder had a homeless friend who died" felt disrespectful, and in the space I had for it there didn't seem like a way to include that detail without making it feel like the point. Anyway, you can watch Vedder tell the story himself here: https://youtu.be/aaiw1DUTgQs 3) The band (and specifically Ament) has talked about how they're not happy with the rhythmic feel in the recorded version of the song, so some of the stuff I discussed about time feel and locking in they would probably view as being mistakes, but in analysis I don't really tend to care much about whether something is a mistake or not. Whether or not this was planned, it has an impact on the experience of the listener, so I don't see the point in attaching value judgments. 4) On that note, Ament definitely screwed up the half-bar riff, as you may have heard. I decided I didn't care: It's not relevant to my analysis, and it's not really noticeable in the song, just the isolated track, so I figured I'd be nice and not say anything. 5) I should note that sounding painful isn't the only thing a major 3rd can do in a minor key. My point wasn't that that specific emotional affect is the only reason blues-based music does that, it's that they the major and minor 3rds have different emotional affects and blues-based music will often pick whichever one is a better fit for the narrative. 6) The verse does include some vocal ad-libs between the phrases, many of which do go to the root, but I don't really hear those as structural parts of the melody. You might, though, in which case more of the phrases do get resolved. 7) At the end, when I said "food kitchens", I think my brain just combined "food bank" and "soup kitchen". I don't know if a food kitchen is a thing, but food banks and soup kitchens are both good.

I don't think I ever considered how crucial Ament is to make this riff so big sounding - the guitars play in a rather high register, and the low D really gives it depth.

My drug addict brother gave me a tape of ten in 2000 when I was 5 years old. It was the first act of kindness he ever showed me. I associate this song with a turning point in his life where I learned he wasn’t a bad guy beyond the junk that had a grip on him. Today he’s a good man, and I value Pearl Jam as my favorite band because of that.

Holy shit, I've been listening to this song for a decade, and that police siren/riff connection just hit like a truck. I think you might be right.

The rhythm section of this song is incredible

That "double stop" that Ament does at the end of the intro is sliding harmonics! Can only do it on a fretless.

It's weird because, having been homeless for several months when I was 16 and knowing that it's the song's main topic, I somehow always hear it more from a mental illness standpoint as it's what I'm struggling with the most. I think Vedder paintd an incredible picture of somebody who's both very much in the present moment but also almost not there at all, disconnected from the rest of the world because of some kind of invisible barrier, and while my brain goes "that barrier is class" my heart wants to go "that barrier is neurodivergence"

I've been both struggling on and off with homelessness, and a huge grunge fan, for pretty much all of my adult life, and you've just absolutely increased my appreciation for this banger by an order of magnitude. Thank you. And can I say, I think you did a great job at acknowledging the humanity of homeless folks. Thanks!

If you spend any amount of time in Missoula, Montana; you will end up having a chat with Jeff Ament. He is truly one of the nicest, must humble dudes I've ever had the pleasure of meeting. Most people don't actually realize they're talking to a rock god, because he just goes with the flow. He also has spearheaded a charity to put Skate Parks all across the state of Montana for kids to play at. The guy is awesome. Oh, and he plays in a pretty cool band that comes to town quite often too! :-D

I'm just loving Pearl Jam's guitarists getting some academic level appreciation. Thank you, 12 Tone!

The way the USA treats homelessness is so frustrating and exhausting. Just doing a quick web search, researchers estimate that governments pay almost as much to force people to sleep rough as they would to just pay their rent - and that's not even taking into account how much of their possessions the police will just destroy for no reason. Or the part where permanent residences unlock things like credit union bank accounts, that help people build more stability on top of having a safe place to sleep. Thanks for talking about this song. I'd heard it before but I had no idea about this stuff.

Also, I feel like not mentioning McCready's whammy bar dips in the chorus is missing an important part of the puzzle.

i think the first lyric, 'freezin' as a tritone adds eerieness and sort of a little 'major' feeling which gets ripped away feeling like destruction of the 'major' feeling, beautiful start

Eddie’s quiet spoken word section is louder on the Ten Redux mix and can actually be heard (mostly).

Understanding Even Flow is hard for me, but then again, it’s always been hard to understand what Eddie Vedder is singing. Thank you everybody, I’m here all night. On a serious note, brilliant reaction as usual!

After the line “doesn’t know to read” I swear the guitar sounds like laughing. 10 is such a great album that only the hidden track is not played on radio.

At 9:16, you missed a detail about the bass slide. It’s a harmonic double stop. After he hits the harmonics, he then slides his finger from behind the nut all the way up the neck to make the harmonics move up in pitch for so long.

You just broke down my favorite P.J. tune, and it's meaning, in a way that I never could have thought of...brilliant! Thank you! "...I died...I died, and you just stood there. I died, and you watched. I died, and you walked by, and said 'no'. I'm dead."

I was at that show in Seattle when he told the story about Ed. The whole show really just had a gravitas to it, wish I could experience it again.

I typically listen to the version of this found on their ‘greatest hits’ album. What stands out in this version is the outro. It’s a bit ham-fisted compared to the subdued panhandling you highlighted in this video, but at the end of the song, as the guitars cut off and the drums play a heavily syncopated fill resembling the rhythm of a drunkard struggling to stand up, Vedder speaks “I died. I died and you just stood there. I died and you watched. I died and you walked by and said no. I’m dead.”