Rearviewmirror - Pearl Jam

Artist: Pearl Jam
Song: Rearviewmirror
Year: 1993
Album: Vs.

This song is one of my all-time favorites. It just captured my mood perfectly when I first heard it. The overlying themes of the "Rearviewmirror" have nothing to do with me, but a few select lines and the music is what sold me on the song. It elevated its status from favorite to all-time favorite with one moment.

I was working an overnight job stocking at K-Mart in 1994. On Friday evenings, the K-Mart Radio Network would actually have a live DJ play music. They took requests from the different stores. No one at our store could ever find the number, so we were stuck with whatever was requested. That was fine with us because it meant that we wouldn't have to listen to the same 50 songs played over and over and over again. It took me years to appreciate "When My Guitar Gently Weeps" again because it looped so much.

K-Mart stopped doing this service for their employees sometime in 1995. I was among the last employees to actually hear it. One night, a coworker and I were shooting the breeze and talking about music, when "Rearviewmirror" came on. We were both ecstatic! We never dreamed this song would ever be played over the air. We listened carefully and they actually left the word fuck in the song. No bleeping. No muting. Everything was left in.

We were impressed. It didn't take much to make us happy back then. The work was so monotonous, that any ray of sunshine was magnified greatly. I never forgot that night and I will always love this song.

Lyrics:
I took a drive today
Time to emancipate
I guess it was the beatings made me wise
But I'm not about to give thanks or apologize
I couldn't breathe holdin' me down
Hand on my face kissin' the ground
Enmity gauged united by fear
'Posed to endure what I could not forgive...

I seem to look away
Wounds in the mirror waved
It wasn't my surface most defiled
Head at your feet fool to your crown
Fist on my plate, swallowed it down
Enmity gauged, united by fear
Tried to endure what I could not forgive

Saw things
Clearer
Once you, were in my...Rearview mirror...

I gather speed from you fucking with me
Once and for all I'm far away
I hardly believe, finally the shades...are raised...hey...

Saw things so much clearer
Once you, once you...
Rearview mirror

Saw things so much clearer
Once you...oh yeah...