"Yellow Ledbetter", Countdown to Pearl Jam

Hello,

Yesterday my drive music was the Pearl Jam official bootleg (believe it or not, that's not an oxymoron) from the October 22nd, 2003 Las Vegas show. They performed an amazing 29 song setlist. As with most concerts in the recent past, they closed the show out with the song "Yellow Ledbetter". Singer Eddie Vedder mumbles most of the lyrics which makes it nearly unintelligible. After I got home I tracked down the lyrics. Unfortunately the lyrics don't help much in clearing up the nearly unintelligible meaning of the song. These are from lyricsty.com:

Unsealed on a porch a letter sat.
Then you said, "I wanna leave it again."
Once I saw her on a beach of weathered sand.
And on the sand I wanna leave it again. Yeah.
On a weekend I wanna wish it all away, yeah.
And they called and I said that "I want what I said" and then I call out
Again.
And the reason oughta' leave her calm, I know.
I said "I know what I waited not a boxer or the bag."

Ah yeah, can you see them out on the porch? Yeah, but they don't wave.
I see them round the front way. Yeah.
And I know, and I know I don't want to stay.
Make me cry...

I see... Ooh I don't know why there's something else.
I wanna drum it all away...
Oh, I said, "I don't, I don't know where there's a boxer or the bag."

Ah yeah, can you see them out on the porch? Yeah, but they don't wave.
But I see them round the front way. Yeah.
And I know, and I know. I don't wanna stay at all.
I don't wanna stay. Yeah.
I don't wanna stay. [x2]
I don't... Don't wanna, oh... Yeah. Ooh... Ohh...

These lyrics are ever changing, apparently based on Eddie Vedder's mood. I listened to their live performance of this song at a 2008 Madison Square Garden show. What Eddie Vedder sings doesn't match up very well with the above lyrics until the band gets to the chorus. This particular performance also has a tag from "The Star Spangled Banner". pearljam.com has lyrics to most of the Pearl Jam library, except they have no lyrics to "Ledbetter".

I don't know how reliable this is but the story behind the song is a friend of Eddie Vedder had a brother die in the Gulf War. His friend's last name is Ledbetter and the envelope in which he received that letter was yellow. That adds the poignancy especially to the phrase, "I don't know whether there is a box or a bag". I know that's different than what I have above, but as I mentioned the lyrics are constantly changing.

For more details check the wikipedia.com page for "Yellow Ledbetter". On their most recent published setlist they didn't even perform the song. However on their previous tour stop that was the last song they sang.

I continue adding songs to my Pearl Jam dream setlist, I'm up to 24 songs now. I'm going to add four or five more songs and then publish it. On their most recent setlist they performed 27 songs.

In regards to the performance I referred to at the start of this blog, the October 22nd, 2003 Las Vegas show. That was Pearl Jam's 10th anniversary show of when they first played at the Offramp in Seattle. They've come a long way since that first show. Vedder said the Offramp only holds about 200 people. It's an amazing show, definitely buy it if you can.

Have a great day, I should be back tomorrow. themusicaddict