Monday, July 21, 2014

"Use Your Voices or Hold a Light" : Eddie Vedder and 'the most powerful song ever written'

Eddie Vedder and Pearl Jam had never played John Lennon's "Imagine" before last Friday night in Portugal when he picked up an acoustic guitar and sang a solo version (with a few thousand back-up singers). Here are the words he used to introduce the song (from Consequence of Sound) followed by the video.
 "You know if you are anti-war. If you're anti-war it doesn’t mean you are 'pro' one side or the other in a conflict. However it does make you 'pro' many things. We are not alone after all. ... Well, so anti-war makes you 'pro' many things. Pro-peace, pro-human, pro-evolution, makes you pro-communication, pro-diplomacy, pro-love, pro-understanding, pro-forgiveness. You know some people don’t understand how you can be pro-soldier. If you are anti-war you're pro-soldier because you don’t want the soldier to be put in harm's way. To sacrifice himself or herself for some reason that’s not…for no good reason. I have many, many…We have many, many friends of the group and through out our lives we’ve met incredible people and in the armed forces. We have an understanding and they listen our music and they get it so I’m not sure…You know sometimes if you speak out people are going to misunderstand and they take things a certain way or another. If you don’t speak out you don’t know. If someone doesn’t like it probably means it has some kind of meaning. It’s not just bullshit. It’s not just nothing. So this next song I always thought it was probably the most powerful song ever written. I think it is the most powerful song ever written. Which is why I have never played it. It seems like maybe there is a reason to play it. If you’d like join me or use your voices or hold a light there might be some people out there that need to know they are not alone.”

Eddie Vedder - Imagine (live in Portugal) by sheehanpaul-ie

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