Taken from "Five Against the World"
by Cameron Crowe
Rolling Stone 10/28/93
The following is an excerpt. Rather read the whole thing?
"Alive" set the tone for everything that would follow. The first song on
Ten was also the first song to bring attention to the band. It was clearly
Vedder's creative breakthrough, and the band's initial video celebrated a
cathartic live performance of the song. In an early Los Angeles Times review,
writer Chris William had even compared the song to the Who's "My Generation."
Today, "Alive" is a Gen X rallying cry, but tonight, sitting in the
Nightlite, Vedder reveals the true meaning of the song.
"Everybody writes about it like it's a life-affirmation, thing - I'm really
glad about that,' he says with a rueful laugh "It's a great interpretation.
But 'Alive' is ... it's torture. Which is why it's fucked up for me. Why I
should probably learn how to sing another way. It would be easier. It's...
it's too much."
Vedder continues: "The story of the song is that a mother is with a father
and the father dies. It's an intense thing because the son looks just like
the father. The son grows up to be the father, the person that she lost. His
father's dead, and now this confusion, his mother, his love, how does he love
her, how does she love him? In fact, the mother, even though she marries
somebody else, there's no one she's ever loved more than the father. You know
how it is, first loves and stuff. And the guy dies. How could you ever get
him back? But the son. He looks exactly like him. It's uncanny. So she wants
him. The son is oblivious to it all. He doesn't know what the fuck is going
on. He's still dealing, he's still growing up. He's still dealing with love,
he's still dealing with the death of his father. All he knows is 'I'm still
alive' - those three words, that's totally out of burden."
Elvis' "Suspicious Minds" blasts on the jukebox as Vedder continues. "Now
the second verse is 'Oh she walks slowly into a young man's room... I can
remember to this very day . . . the look . . . the look.' And I don't say
anything else. And because I'm saying, 'The look, the look' everyone thinks
it goes with 'on her face.' It's not on her face. The look is between her
legs. Where do you go with that? That's where you came from."
"But I'm still alive. I'm the lover that's still alive. And the whole
conversation about 'You're still alive, she said' And his doubts: 'Do I
deserve to be? Is that the question?' Because he's fucked up forever! So now
he doesn't know how to deal with it, so what does he do, he goes out killing
people - that was [the song] 'Once.' He becomes a serial killer. And
'Footsteps,' the final song of the trilogy [it was released as a U.K. B side
to 'Jeremy'], that's when he gets executed That's what happens. The Green
River killer... and in San Diego, there was another prostitute killer down
there. Somehow I related to that. I think that happens more than we know.
It's a modern way of dealing with a bad life."
Then he smiles as he says, "I'm just glad I became a songwriter."
