Soundtrack Review: Eddie Vedder - "Into the Wild"

Into the Wild Album Cover

Note: This review is based on the iTunes Store Extended Edition of the soundtrack, and features four songs not included with the original release.

Into the Wild was initially published as a docu-novel in 1996, and chronicled the adventures of Christopher McCandless, a disaffected youth who gave away his college savings before embarking on a journey across America and, ultimately, a fatal hike into Alaska.

Jon Krakauer's book was adapted and released as a Sean Penn directed feature-film in September, 2007. Largely faithful to the source material, the film touches on the trappings of wealth, youthful disaffection, isolation and loneliness.

The soundtrack is a solo effort by Eddie Vedder, and is currently the only full-length album he has released outside his affiliation with Pearl Jam.

Track Listing:

1. "Setting Forth"
2. "No Ceiling"
3. "Far Behind"
4. "Rise"
5. "Long Nights"
6. "Tuolumne"
7. "Hard Sun" (Cover)
8. "Society" (Cover)
9. "The Wolf"
10. "End of the Road"
11. "Guaranteed"
12. "No More" (Bonus Track)
13. "Photographs" (Bonus Track)
14. "Here's to the State" (Cover, Live, Bonus Track)
15. "No More" (Live, Bonus Track)

Into the Wild on iTunes (Link will not work if you do not have iTunes installed on your computer.)

The soundtrack opens with Setting Forth, a song which serves to illustrate McCandless' (naive?) enthusiasm, both lyrically and musically, as he embarks on his journey. We're introduced to the narrative by way of a carefree and raucous call to adventure -- a sensibility that is pushed aside as the soundtrack progresses.

McCandless often travelled alone, taking in America, and Vedder does a great job of conveying an open and expansive vibe, despite many songs which clock in at under two minutes. Part of this is the simplistic, paired down approach utilized on much of the soundtrack:

Society (a cover of a Jerry Hannan song) is little more than Vedder singing over an acoustic guitar:

There's those thinkin' more or less, less is more,
but if less is more, how you keepin' score?
It means for every point you make, your level drops.
Kinda like you're startin' from the top...
and you can't do that.

This track, better than any other song on the album, sums up the experience of watching Into the Wild, encapsulating the isolation that McCandless begins to experience as he slowly realizes the extent of his peril. Time and again, he sought out companionship, when companionship could be sought out -- and once it couldn't (while stranded in Alaska) he writes in his journal about a rising sense of loneliness. McCandless wasn't a loner, whatever else he might have been -- or, at least, he wasn't very good at trying to be one.

His need for companionship is met with the stark reality of isolation in Hard Sun, another cover (original version by Indio) which delves into our tendency to be humbled by mother nature, despite a constant drive to prove dominance and self-reliance:

There's a big
a big hard sun
beating on the big people
in the big hard world

When she comes to greet me
she is mercy at my feet
I see her inner charm
she just throws it back at me

Hard Sun comes just after the simple arrangements of Society and favors an electric guitar, pounding drums and backing vocals by Sleater-Kinney's Corin Tucker.

Vedder finishes off the soundtrack with Guaranteed, moving back to an acoustic arrangement, summing up McCandless' idealism while hinting at an acceptance of his mortality.

Leave it to me as I find a way to be
consider me a satelite for ever orbiting
I knew all the rules but the rules did not know me
guaranteed...

A handful of tracks serve as aural accents during the film, and may be of less interest outside that context: The Wolf consists primarily of Vedder's primal "aahhoooooooooooooos" -- effective when juxtaposed with sweeping camera shots and gorgeous cinematography -- less interesting as a stand-alone concept. (It's not the sort of track that should show up on party shuffle.) Other accents fare better: The simple (and brief) Tuolomne serves as a segue between Long Nights and Hard Sun but stands up pretty well on its own as an acoustic interlude sans vocals.

Ultimately, the Into the Wild soundtrack deservers to be listened to as a whole, and suffers a bit outside that context. As a mechanism for an honest telling of McCandless' story, Vedder delivers a massive success, nailing the core themes of the film and Krakauer's book.

Despite a feeling of musical simplicity, a close listen reveals subtle layers of instruments, many of which Vedder played himself.

Bonus Tracks:

The four bonus tracks are not officially tied to the movie, but play well alongside the official soundtrack. No More War appears twice (as a live track and as a studio recording) but all of the bonus tracks are essentially folk-style protest songs focused on the Bush Administration and the War in Iraq / on Terror.

From No More:

I speak for a man who gave for this land
Took a bullet in the back for his pay
Spilled his blood in the dirt and the dust
He's come back to say:
What he has seen is hard to believe
And it does no good to just pray
He asks of us to stand
And we want end this war today

...

Oh nothing's too good for a veteran
Yeah, this is what they say
So nothing is what they will get
In this new American way

No more is undeniably more impressive when presented as a live experience --the shouted demand of "no more war" by hundreds of fans is far more powerful than in the studio rendition, where it is uttered by Vedder alone.

From Here's to the State (a modified version of a Phil Ochs song):

Here's to the churches of Jerry Falwell,
the cross once made of silver now is turned to rust,
and the sunday morning services preach in fear of men in love,
and God only knows in heaven they must trust

Here's to the land you tore out the heart of,
Jerry Falwell find yourself another country to be part of

Vedder goes on to question the policies of John Roberts, Alberto Gonzales, George Bush and Dick Cheney -- asking them one by one to "find...another Country to be part of..."

Presented in this context, No More (an original song written by Vedder for a to-be-released anti-war documentary) and Here's to the State are interesting because they mirror the sort of issues that McCandless seemed to retreat from: His spiritual journey and self-imposed isolation can be taken as a response to, or a personal form of protest against, issues and concerns like those Vedder sings about here -- admittedly, long before the War on Terror and George W. Bush. Still, one wonders if he wouldn't be protesting more publicly had he walked out of Alaska, as he clearly intended to do.

He was not a man without convictions.

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