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A1+

Better Man

Pearl Jam

Language
English
Released
1994
Genre
rock
Level
A1+
Difficulty score
366
Duration
4:27

How to study this song

Learning “Better Man” means 40 entries at A1+ — 9 English words, 4 adjectives and 27 verb forms, every one taken from what the song actually says. Begin with clock and speech: get those and most of the lines stop being guesswork. This one leans on its verbs: 27 distinct forms against 4 adjectives, so conjugation is where the effort goes. At this level the goal is recognition: hear a word, place it, keep going.

The words of this song, in several languages

Every word below is taken from this song and translated by us. Nothing here is the lyric itself — these are the individual words you need in order to follow it.

Vocabulary

ENESITFRPTNLDE
clockrelojorologiohorlogerelógioklokUhr
speechdiscursodiscorsodiscoursdiscursotoespraakRede

This card holds 7 more words. You meet them when you play the song.

Adjectives

ENESITFR

What this song teaches you

Level · A1+

Vocabulary words
9
Adjectives
4
Word combos
8
Expressions
11
Verb forms
27
Quiz questions
35

More English songs at this level

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  • She Will Be Loved — Maroon 5 (2004)A1+
  • November Rain — Guns N' Roses (1992)A1+

Background

About the song

«Better Man» is a song by the American rock band Pearl Jam. It is the eleventh track on the band’s third studio album, «Vitalogy», which Epic Records released on 22 November 1994, first on vinyl and two weeks later, on 6 December, on CD and cassette. The singer Eddie Vedder wrote the song on his own, and it was produced by Brendan O’Brien together with the band. It lasts about four and a half minutes. It was never sold as a commercial single, but it was sent to radio stations and became one of the band’s most-played songs on American rock radio.

Pearl Jam was formed in Seattle in 1990. The guitarist Stone Gossard and the bassist Jeff Ament had played together in Green River and later in Mother Love Bone. After the death of Mother Love Bone’s singer, Andrew Wood, in 1990, they started a new group with the guitarist Mike McCready and Eddie Vedder, a young singer who was living in San Diego at the time. The debut album «Ten», released in August 1991, made Pearl Jam one of the leading bands of the Seattle grunge movement, and «Vs.» followed in 1993. The band entered the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2017, in its first year of eligibility.

The song is much older than the album. According to his own account, Vedder wrote it as a teenager, while he was still at school, and recorded a first version at home on a simple four-track machine. Before Pearl Jam existed he played it with a San Diego band called Bad Radio, at a slightly faster tempo but already close to the version we know. When he brought it to Pearl Jam, the other members were not keen at first: they felt it sounded more mainstream and pop than the rest of their music, and it was left off «Vs.». The producer Brendan O’Brien has said that he told the band in rehearsal that the song was a hit, and that Vedder did not like hearing it. For a time Vedder even thought of giving the song to a charity album for Greenpeace, sung by someone else. The band tried it several times before he was happy with a recording.

The version on «Vitalogy» was made during the long tour for «Vs.». Much of the final take comes from a performance at the Fox Theatre in Atlanta on 3 April 1994, with further parts recorded later in the studio, and the quiet opening was first recorded for a different song. On the track Vedder sings and plays guitar, Stone Gossard and Mike McCready play guitars, Jeff Ament plays bass and Dave Abbruzzese plays drums. Brendan O’Brien added Hammond organ, pump organ and bass pedals. Abbruzzese left the band in August 1994, before the album came out, and Jack Irons became the new drummer.

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PT
NL
DE
bettermejormiglioremeilleurmelhorbeterbesser

This card holds 3 more adjectives. You meet them when you play the song.

Verb forms

ENESITFRPTNLDE
waitin'esperandoaspettandoen attendantà esperawachtendwartend
watchin'mirandoguardandoen regardanta olharkijkendschauend
tell himdilediglidis-luidiz-lhezeg hemsag ihm
she practicesensayaprovaelle répèteensaiaze oefentsie übt
he opensabreapreil ouvreabrehij openter öffnet
pretends to sleepfinge dormirfinge di dormirefait semblant de dormirfinge dormirdoet alsof ze slaaptstellt sich schlafend
he looksmiraguardail regardeolhahij kijkter schaut
she liesmientementeelle mentmenteze liegtsie lügt
saysdicediceditdizzegtsagt

This card holds 18 more verb forms. You meet them when you play the song.

Musically, the song starts very softly, with little more than Vedder’s low voice and a guitar. Then the whole band comes in and the music grows into a wide, open chorus that concert audiences love to sing. Its chord progression is very close to «Save It for Later», a 1982 song by the English band The Beat, known in the United States as The English Beat. Vedder has openly acknowledged the connection, and Pearl Jam often plays the two songs together as a medley on stage. Because of this softer, more melodic side, «Better Man» is usually filed under pop rock as well as alternative rock.

The words describe a woman in an unhappy relationship. Late at night she waits for her partner and rehearses what she will say to tell him that she has had enough. When he comes in, she turns away and acts as if she is asleep. She remembers a time when she was brave and confident and was waiting for her life to begin, yet she stays, telling herself that she will not find anyone better. The song does not judge her: it shows how difficult leaving can be. A reviewer for Rolling Stone described it as a haunting ballad about a woman trapped in a bad relationship, and when Vedder introduced it on the VH1 programme «Storytellers» in 2006 he said it was a song about abusive relationships.

For learners of English, the lyric is short and uses mostly everyday words. The story is told in the present simple with the third-person -s: «she practices», «he opens», «she dreams». «Practice» as a verb is the American spelling; in British English the verb is «practise». The same is true of «color», which is «colour» in British spelling. The first words drop the final g in the informal way («waitin’», «watchin’»), and «it’s got to» means «it has got to», that is, «it must stop». In «she don’t want» the singer uses a non-standard form that is common in songs and casual speech; in standard English we say «she doesn’t want». The reflexive pronoun «herself» appears in «talk to herself» and «tell herself», and the lyric offers useful phrasal verbs and expressions such as «roll over» (turn over in bed), «look someone over» (look at someone carefully), «come along» (arrive or appear), «in love with», «no one else» and «back when» (in the days when). The title uses «better», the comparative of «good» (good, better, best).

Did you know?

Pearl Jam played the song live for the first time on 13 May 1993 at Slim’s, a club in San Francisco, about six months before «Vs.» came out. At that time it had a faster, more up-tempo beat.

On 13 October 2004, at one of the Vote for Change concerts in East Rutherford, New Jersey, Vedder sang «Better Man» with Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, at Springsteen’s request.

In concert Vedder sometimes begins the song with part of another one. At a show in Arnhem, in the Netherlands, in August 2006, he opened it with Bob Marley’s «No Woman, No Cry».

The album title «Vitalogy» comes from an old medical book that Vedder found at a garage sale. The book inspired the cover and the booklet, and the CD case opens sideways like a book, which made it more expensive to produce.

AllMusic’s reviewer called it arguably the standout track of «Vitalogy», and in 2021 both American Songwriter and Kerrang! placed it sixth in their lists of the greatest Pearl Jam songs. At the 1995 ASCAP Pop Music Awards it was named one of the most-performed songs of the year.

Charts & streaming

Although it was only a radio track, «Better Man» was a big success on American rock radio. It reached number one on Billboard’s Album Rock Tracks chart in early 1995 and stayed there for eight weeks, ending the year in third place on that chart’s 1995 list. It also reached number two on Modern Rock Tracks and number 13 on the Hot 100 Airplay chart. Outside the United States it reached number nine in Canada and number five in Iceland.

«Vitalogy» itself was one of the fastest-selling albums of its time. The CD entered the Billboard 200 at number one with more than 877,000 copies sold in its first week, second only to Pearl Jam’s own «Vs.», and the vinyl edition alone had sold 34,000 copies in its first week, a record for vinyl that lasted until 2014. The album has been certified five times platinum in the United States. At the 1996 Grammy Awards its single «Spin the Black Circle» won Best Hard Rock Performance, the band’s first Grammy, and the album was nominated for Album of the Year.