subject: Yellow Ledbetter By Pearl Jam The Real Lyrics [print this page] Yellow Ledbetter is probably Pearl Jam's most easily identifiable song. And yet most people have little or no idea what the song's lyrics are saying at all. The song has undeniable emotional impact, so it would seem like the lyrics would be of primary importance. Not the case here though.
The first several times people hear Yellow Ledbetter, it grabs your attention right from the start. It opens with a ringing yet sparse guitar riff that sets it apart from the bulk of Pearl Jam's work. It hangs out there and pulls you in with such immediacy that you are involved viscerally before the first word is sung. When Eddie Vedder moans out the first line of lyrics the contrast between the crisp guitar and the guttural way he moans the words turns what was already a song holding your rapt attention into a an emotional experience like no other.
If you look around for lyrics to Yellow Ledbetter, you will find that there are literally dozens of completely different versions of what people think is being sung. Sorting out the ones that are obviously wrong can take a lot of time, but really isn't as hard as you would think. In interviews, Eddie Vedder has repeatedly said that the lyrics change with just about every performance. It is pretty clear however, that the core lyrics and their content maintain an integrity to a central theme.
That theme is one of extreme emotional pain. The kind of pain that comes not just from the end of a relationship, but from the end of a major part of someone's life. Is this an opinion? Of course it is, and having listened to the song more times than I can count, I am entitled to it. Listen to it yourself over and over, and see what it means to you. Listening to it enough to make an impression on you gives entitles each and every one of us to our own interpretation of the Yellow Ledbetter lyrics.
How do I know this to be true? Because if this were not the kind of piece that Pearl Jam wonted to be seen this way, they would have made good and sure that we had a lyric sheet with the verses and chorus nailed down specifically. A song like Don Mclean;s American Pie is necessarily specific with cultural and historical references without which the song would make no sense. Yellow Ledbetter is an entirely different beast, with more in common with a Tom Waits ballad with it's droaning unintelligible mass of words and images than it does even the bulk of Pearl Jam's own work.
The more I listen to Yellow Ledbetter, the more I get out of it. Building on what I had already gotten from previous listenings and expanding the scope and impact of what has to be acknowledged as one amazing song. To me the hallmark of any work of art is whether is can stand up to repeated exposure and continue to inspire some kind of emotional reaction, and does that reaction evolve with time. Does it resonate differently for it's audience as their lives change?
By this, or just about any other barometer Pearl Jam has a masterpiece in Yellow Ledbetter. It meets these standards with ease...
