The Beauty in Things: Eddie Vedder's Into the Wild Soundtrack
Written: Mar 06 '08
Product Rating:
Pros: It's a lovely reflection of the movie it supplements
Cons: It may confound unfair expectations
The Bottom Line: Only when you let go of what you wanted Vedder's first solo release to be and what you expected it to be can you appreciate what it is.
shilmafone's Full Review: Into The Wild by Eddie Vedder
I've come to accept the fact that, of late, it seems to take more to impress me. It's easier for me to listen to an album, find the flaws, find the strengths, maybe write something about it, and call it a day. I might never listen to the album again once I've dissected it, because, well, why? What more can I get out of it once it's revealed itself to me?
It's a self-centered sort of view on music that once, a long time ago, I probably swore I'd never have. Maybe it's appropriate, then, that of all the albums in the world, it would be my man Ed Vedder's soundtrack for Into the Wild that would break me out of the doldrums of an unrelentingly critical approach to music.
As a fan of all things Pearl Jam, it made sense that I'd buy the disc. I buy pretty much everything I can get my hands on that has Eddie Vedder's fingerprints anywhere near it. I even listened to it the day I bought it, perhaps wistfully hoping for some of the old Pearl Jam magic that so enthralled me over fifteen years ago, the magic that the band so effectively found again on their most recent album. I didn't find it. It was a naïve move, really, to think I'd find Pearl Jam in an Eddie Vedder solo release, but it's hard to fight expectations. You don't intend to go into a record with certain expectations, they just kind of...exist, you know?
Part of the problem was that I hadn't seen the film. Well, I went and fixed that this week. Suddenly, Vedder's soundtrack is haunting me. It's everywhere, it's in my head, it's in the ice flying off my car, it's in the silhouetted flock of geese passing overhead at sunset.
Maybe I should put a spoiler alert here.
---*** AHOY! SPOILERS AHEAD! ***---
Does that work?
Anyway, the protagonist of the movie, one Christopher McCandless, dies at the end. Maybe that's not a spoiler -- it actually happened, as Into the Wild is based on a true story. Most people who go into the movie with any sort of background knowledge know exactly how it ends, so it's not exactly a surprise that it happens; the beauty is in the how, in the way that Penn portrays his final days and moments. Me, I didn't know that he dies at the end. That he actually died following his dream of getting away from it all, from the city, from his family, and finding what he was looking for in Alaska is one of those things that sticks with me. The thing is, I didn't like the kid for most of the movie, because mostly, he acted like a self-centered kid, never allowing anyone to question what he was doing, dismissing any suggestion that maybe interpersonal relationships were just as important as one's relationship to the rhythms of the earth.
Still, what he found as he followed his dream headstrong into bad weather, sickness, and even death, was utterly priceless. We got to watch this character, as masterfully played by Emile Hirsch, grow throughout the film, right up to the point where he finally died of starvation -- Sean Penn really did a wonderful job with the movie.
---*** AVAST! THE SPOILERS HAVE RETREATED! ***---
A major part of that journey, as the movie tells it, is punctuated, perhaps even narrated, by Vedder's occasional intercessions. Vedder's words lend a look into the mind of McCandless, allowing for exposition without forcing dialogue into places it didn't belong. As a result, we get things like the lovely, purposeful "Setting Forth": Out here, realigned / A Planet out of sight / Nature drunk and High, he sings, and you hear the excitement of a long journey ahead in his voice as he is just realizing that what he is in for is what he wants. The world begins where the road ends / Watch me leave it all behind, sings Vedder in the closest thing here to rock 'n roll, the rollicking "Far Behind", and he is both defiant and hopeful. Even without words, Vedder finds a way to penetrate the soul, as "Wolf" seems grounded in his admiration for Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan in its wordless utterances and outpouring of emotions.
Of those who have listened to the soundtrack, the primary criticism seems to be that most of the songs on it are simply too short, as if they show up for a minute or two and decide to leave just when they're getting good. My response to such a criticism is twofold: For one, in the context of a life cut short just as that life was learning how to truly live, the brevity of the songs is appropriate. For two, such criticism is once again a result of foiled expectations -- we expect songs to be longer than two minutes, we expect them to have choruses and bridges and codas and whatnot, and when they don't, it feels like a missed opportunity at greatness. Once you accept these short little snippets as what they are, they're really quite wonderful. To artificially lengthen them would doubtless have robbed them of some of their fleeting, ephemeral sort of magic.
That said, there are a couple of bona fide songs to be found here, neither of which were actually written by Vedder. "Hard Sun" (originally written by Gordon Peterson as Indio) is the single, and it's by far the most radio-ready thing on the album; it's got the big chorus, and the bridge, and the beautiful backing vocal harmonies from Sleater-Kinney's Corin Tucker. It's big, it's thoughtful, it's poetic, and it's the one thing on the In the Wild soundtrack that actually fulfills all of the expectations we had for Vedder. "Society" is the other song (written by Jerry Hannan for the film), a Woodie Guthrie-sounding thing that's full of appropriate quotables. Society, you're a crazy breed / Hope you're not lonely, without me, sings Vedder, and it's almost as though you can't help but wonder while listening to it what would happen if you just up and left.
Still, everything else on the album sounds as though it's simply a setup to "Guaranteed".
"Guaranteed" is actually the first song from the soundtrack that we hear in the movie, and it shows up intermittently throughout. Something about that lush, plucked guitar seems to spur thought, somehow, and Vedder's vocal lies largely in the realm of stream of consciousness poetry that, even in its scattered state, never loses sight of his goal:
Everyone I come across in cages they bought
They think of me and my wandering but I'm never what they thought
Got my indignation but I'm pure in all my thoughts
I'm alive
It's quiet, and beautiful, and then, like the rest of the short little songs on the soundtrack, it ends. Or, at least, it gives way to silence.
Now, I prefer to think of this silence in a John Cage "4'33"" kind of way, in that the atmosphere, the everyday noise that surrounds us, becomes the music. "Guaranteed" is a beautiful way to lead into quiet reflection, and the soundtrack allows that for us, a short bit of reflection in which we can think about our lives, about our families, or about the beauty that surrounds us in the mundane facade of everyday life. After allowing us that short time to think, "Guaranteed" starts again, except this time, instead of words, Vedder hums and oooos and ohhhs a gently flowing melody, not interrupting our thoughts, but providing a backdrop for them. Don't skip the silence; I'm convinced it's there for a reason.
It seems appropriate that Eddie Vedder's first full-album musical venture without the net of his band behind him would be the soundtrack for a film that features a character's own venture into the unknown without the net of his family and friends behind him. Like the story of McCandless, the progression of the soundtrack sounds like an awakening of sorts for Vedder, as he realizes that the boundaries of his artistic capabilities are perhaps farther than even he suspected. Unlike McCandless, he's still around to show us where his newly-opened eyes will take him.
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