Letter writing? Yellow Ledbetter? What the heck are you trying to say?

I love me some Pearl Jam! I especially love the grey matter inside Eddie Vedder’s noggin. The man is genius. Lyrical brilliance and positive social conscience coming out in a lot of curse words and passion. Enough about that for now.

I want to talk about letter writing. In today’s computerized world, that includes emails.

It is difficult enough to convey a feeling through handwriting if your wording is even slightly off. With the indifference of Cambria font, emotion and nuance are tentative.

Are you writing a business letter or an email for the collective office staff? You need direct impact. This is your job, for goodness sake! You’d better be presenting yourself in a courteous, yet straightforward manner. But it can be difficult to find the right balance. Let me take a look at your draft. I don’t know the office politics or the stress riding on a big closing deal, so I won’t have an emotional bias. I will tell you what I understand your letter is communicating and if you’re doing it without offense.

I’ll help you with university correspondence, cover letters, inter-office memos, customer requests/complaints, even letters to Gramma. I will not touch a break-up letter with a ten-foot pole. Besides, do that business in person or change your name to Cambria.

Back to Eddie…
Much like a poorly written letter, Yellow Ledbetter is speculative at best. A song with cryptic phrases and words almost impossible to decipher, original version recorded as a B-side, Mr. Vedder has been known to make up similar sounding jibberish when performing live. The following is a delightful take on what he could be saying, or what we could understand if he took the marbles out of his mouth. You’ll find yourself watching it over and over. Enjoy!