Life Wasted is a song by Pearl Jam, released on August 28, 2006 as the second single from the band’s eighth studio album, Pearl Jam (2006). Life Wasted featuring lyrics written by vocalist Eddie Vedder and music written by guitarist Stone Gossard. The song peaked at number 10 on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart. On Pearl Jam, Life Wasted is reprised as a modified version on the album’s tenth track, “Wasted Reprise”.
The lyrics for Life Wasted were reportedly written about the death of the punk rock guitarist Johnny Ramone and about the feelings one has after driving home from a funeral. In an interview with Rolling Stone, Vedder stated:
“When you leave that funeral, that drive is as important as any single stretch of road you’ll travel on. You’ve got a renewed appreciation for life. And I think that feeling can last through the day, through the week, but then things start getting back to normal and you start taking this living and breathing and eating thing for granted. I think that song is there to remind you, ‘This is that feeling’….The truth is—I’m a little sensitive and this is a close, personal relationship. I’ll just say it. Fuck it. Right up front. Half the record is based on the loss of the guy who turned out to be the best friend I ever had on the planet. And that was Johnny Ramone”.
The music video for Life Wasted was directed by Fernando Apodaca. The video explores the song’s themes of death and rebirth. The video was filmed over 10 months in locations such as Romania, Seattle, Washington, and George, Washington. The video, which emulates the liner notes from the album, was done without the aid of special effects.
Apodaca created the physical sculptures for the video. Life casts were made of each of the band members’ heads. Vedder sacrificed his eyelashes for the process. The busts were brought to life through the use of projection.
During the video, the heads are shown being lit on fire, drenched with water, and inhabited by worms and bugs. Other sculptures in the video were made from bronze, wax, and leather. It also features footage of Vedder singing and the band performing the song.
Apodaca stated that the video portrays “the ambiguities of consumerism, obsolescence, deterioration, and growth. Within the film exists a fractured world which is both fragile and transitory, such as wax melting and bread voraciously consumed by ants.
Various mythologies are revealed but not explained, opening doorways to interpretation.” The video was released on May 19, 2006 to the public on Google Video under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs license allowing copying, distributing and sharing. This was most likely the first time that a video produced by a major record company was released under such a license. This video marked the first time Pearl Jam had released a conceptual video since “Do the Evolution” in 1998. It was nominated for a MTV Video Music Award for Best Special Effects in 2006.
Tracklist:
- Life Wasted (Stone Gossard, Eddie Vedder)
- Come Back (live) (Mike McCready, Vedder) Recorded live on June 27, 2006 at Xcel Energy Center in Saint Paul, Minnesota.
Pearl Jam
Jeff Ament: bass guitar
Matt Cameron: drums, percussion, backing vocals
Stone Gossard: guitar
Mike McCready: guitar
Eddie Vedder: lead vocals, guitar
John William Cummings (October 8, 1948 – September 15, 2004)
