Episode 60: Pearl Jam’s “Ten” (1991)

Summary

Accelerated Culture Podcast Summary

Episode: 60: Pearl Jam’s “Ten” (1991)
Release Date: February 15, 2025
Hosts: Lori & Scott Free
Podcast: Accelerated Culture
Website: AcceleratedCulturePodcast.com

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Introduction

In Episode 60 of the Accelerated Culture podcast, hosts Lori and Scott Free delve deep into Pearl Jam's seminal debut album, "Ten" (1991). Celebrated as a cornerstone of the grunge movement, this episode explores the album's creation, its impact on the music scene, and the intricate dynamics within Pearl Jam and the broader grunge community.

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Shout Outs and Personal Connections (00:00 - 03:17)

The episode opens with heartfelt shout-outs to Patreon subscribers, friends, and former students, establishing a personal connection with listeners. Notably, Scott Free shares anecdotes about lifelong friends and former students who have supported the podcast, highlighting the tight-knit community around Accelerated Culture.

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The Genesis of "Ten" (03:17 - 07:24)

Lori and Scott trace the origins of Pearl Jam back to the early 1990s, specifically focusing on the tragic death of Andrew Wood, the lead vocalist of Mother Love Bone, in March 1990. This event catalyzed the formation of Pearl Jam, as Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament sought to cope by creating new music. The duo, alongside Mike McCready, initially formed Mookie Blaylock before rebranding to Pearl Jam.

• Quote:
  Lori (05:58): "The Pearl Jam story really begins on March 19, 1990, with the heroin overdose death of Andrew Wood."

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Eddie Vedder's Audition and Temple of the Dog (08:41 - 13:39)

The podcast details Eddie Vedder's pivotal audition for Pearl Jam, facilitated by his friendship with Soundgarden’s drummer, Jack Irons. Vedder's involvement with Temple of the Dog, a tribute project featuring members of Mother Love Bone and Soundgarden, marks his first significant contribution to the grunge scene.

• Quote:
  Lori (12:13): "It was interesting to me how much overlap there was between some of these bands."

• Notable Insight:
  Vedder's vocals on "Hunger Strike" with Temple of the Dog showcased his distinctive voice, setting the stage for Pearl Jam's rise.

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Recording "Ten" and Album Composition (13:39 - 25:55)

Hosts explore the meticulous recording process at London Bridge Studios with producer Rick Parashar, emphasizing the band's evolving dynamics and the challenges in perfecting their sound. Despite initial struggles, "Ten" emerged as a powerful blend of grunge and classic rock influences.

• Quote:
  Scott Free (08:20): "Pearl Jam is one of those bands that we see so often, practically Spinal Tap level, of just a revolving door of drummers."

• Insight:
  The album's title, "Ten," pays homage to their original band name, Mookie Blaylock, reflecting the jersey number that inspired the name change.

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Track-by-Track Analysis (25:55 - 78:06)

Lori and Scott provide an in-depth examination of each track on "Ten," highlighting lyrical themes, musical composition, and the stories behind the songs.

1. Once (03:25 - 05:58)

   • Theme: Descent into madness and serial killing.
   • Quote:
     Scott Free (30:29): "He was freezing, rests his head on a pill made of concrete."

2. Even Flow (32:59 - 40:10)

   • Theme: Homelessness and mental illness.
   • Notable Fact: Originally took up to 100 takes to perfect the song.
   • Quote:
     Scott Free (57:07): "It is based on a true story of Jeremy Wade Dell."

3. Alive (40:19 - 58:02)

   • Theme: Personal revelation and emotional turmoil.
   • Insight: Reflects Eddie Vedder's discovery of his biological father's identity.
   • Quote:
     Lori (42:15): "Eddie wrote this song about him."

4. Why Go (58:03 - 61:25)

   • Theme: Institutionalization and personal struggle.
   • Quote:
     Scott Free (48:45): "It was about a specific girl in Chicago."

5. Black (61:28 - 66:33)

   • Theme: First relationships and heartbreak.
   • Quote:
     Lori (52:46): "Eddie Vedder said that the song is about first relationships."

6. Jeremy (66:52 - 79:08)

   • Theme: School violence and bullying.
   • Insight: Inspired by the tragic story of Jeremy Wade Dell.
   • Quote:
     Lori (58:57): "It came from a small paragraph in a paper."

7. Oceans (79:06 - 84:43)

   • Theme: War and its disillusionment.
   • Quote:
     Scott Free (63:35): "The song opens quiet. It's got that opening guitar just all treble."

8. Porch (84:31 - 90:25)

   • Theme: Romantic breakup and personal reflection.
   • Insight: Known for its high-energy performances and live improvisations.

9. Garden (90:57 - 96:20)

   • Theme: War's impact and personal loss.
   • Quote:
     Scott Free (72:51): "It's about the Gulf War in 1991."

10. Deep (96:26 - 103:00)

    • Theme: Heroin use and rejection of nihilism.
    • Quote:
      Lori (78:06): "It's definitely about heroin use."

11. Release (103:23 - 111:00)

    • Theme: Father-son relationship and emotional release.
    • Quote:
      Lori (84:19): "He wants to be released from the pain."

Hidden Track:
An instrumental piece titled "Master Slave" bookends the album, underscoring the thematic continuity.

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Pearl Jam’s Place in Grunge and Music History (78:06 - 89:50)

The discussion shifts to Pearl Jam's identity within the grunge movement. While often grouped alongside bands like Nirvana, Soundgarden, and Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam distinctly blends grunge with classic and stadium rock elements, drawing comparisons to Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix.

• Quote:
  Scott Free (19:21): "Pearl Jam feels a lot more like a classic rock band."

• Insight:
  Unlike many of their contemporaries, Pearl Jam has sustained longevity and commercial success, becoming one of the best-selling rock bands of all time.

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Legacy and Continued Influence (89:50 - End)

In concluding the episode, Lori and Scott reflect on the enduring legacy of "Ten" and Pearl Jam's influence on subsequent generations of musicians. They highlight the band's resilience, massive fanbase, and philanthropic efforts, cementing their status as rock legends.

• Quote:
  Scott Free (87:21): "They just became one of the biggest selling rock bands of all time."

• Closing Thoughts:
  The hosts tease future episodes, promising to explore more influential albums and surprise selections for listeners.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Lori (05:58): "The Pearl Jam story really begins on March 19, 1990, with the heroin overdose death of Andrew Wood."
• Scott Free (30:29): "He was freezing, rests his head on a pill made of concrete."
• Lori (42:15): "Eddie wrote this song about him."
• Scott Free (48:45): "It was about a specific girl in Chicago."
• Lori (52:46): "Eddie Vedder said that the song is about first relationships."
• Scott Free (57:07): "It is based on a true story of Jeremy Wade Dell."
• Lori (58:57): "It came from a small paragraph in a paper."
• Scott Free (63:35): "The song opens quiet. It's got that opening guitar just all treble."
• Lori (78:06): "It's definitely about heroin use."
• Lori (84:19): "He wants to be released from the pain."
• Scott Free (19:21): "Pearl Jam feels a lot more like a classic rock band."
• Scott Free (87:21): "They just became one of the biggest selling rock bands of all time."

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Conclusion

Episode 60 of Accelerated Culture offers an exhaustive exploration of Pearl Jam's "Ten", illuminating its creation, thematic depth, and lasting impact on the grunge movement and rock music. Through detailed analysis and engaging dialogue, Lori and Scott provide both nostalgic reflections and insightful critiques, making the episode a must-listen for music enthusiasts and Pearl Jam fans alike.

Transcript

[Unknown Speaker]

Foreign.

[Lori]

Welcome to the Accelerated Culture Podcast. A sonic journey through the vibrant and revolutionary sounds of the 1980s and 1990s. And now 2024 Webby Honoree for best indie podcast. I'm Lori, along with my co host, Scott Free. And in this podcast we explore how new waves stormed the airwaves in the early 80s and and gave way for the rise of alternative music in the 90s. Find us on the [e-mail] hi there, everybody, and welcome back to the Accelerated Culture podcast.

[Scott Free]

I'm Lori and I am Scott Free.

[Lori]

Scott, if you don't mind, I think we're going to jump right into the Shouts out.

[Scott Free]

I'm down.

[Lori]

Okay, our first shout out goes to David Nevetta in Colorado, who is our newest Patreon subscriber.

[Scott Free]

Nevetta. Come on, Nevada.

[Lori]

What is that from, Larry?

[Scott Free]

I mean, that's from a lifetime of being friends with David Nevada and saying, come on, Nevada.

[Lori]

No. So you know the guy?

[Scott Free]

Oh, I know this guy.

[Lori]

Oh, okay. Well, I just sent him a bunch of swag.

[Scott Free]

Yeah, thanks, buddy.

[Lori]

Yeah, thank you so much.

[Scott Free]

Yeah. Wow. Yeah, yeah. And as long as we're doing that, I had another shout out to another lifelong friend of mine, J Dog, who has been listening to us while running. I guess all I have to say is thanks for listening and left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot, left foot, left.

[Lori]

Right foot, left foot, right foot, left.

[Unknown Speaker]

Foot, right foot, left.

[Scott Free]

You probably already know how to do that, but I figure that's helpful. Coaching tip from me to you and.

[Lori]

Then one more shout out to a former student of mine, Omar. Omar was my student, boy, I want to say, about 15 years ago. We stayed in touch and he writes. Hey, Lori and Scott, Laurie's former student here. I hadn't listened to your podcasts yet until this one, and I really enjoyed how you two dive into the history and influences of the album in each podcast.

[Scott Free]

That does sound like us.

[Lori]

I am a longtime Massive Attack fan and Unfinished Sympathy still ranks top among my favorite songs of theirs.

[Scott Free]

Oh, good.

[Lori]

So thank you for this wonderful episode.

[Scott Free]

Right on. You're very welcome, Omar. That was fun one to do.

[Lori]

Yeah, and nice to know you're listening, Omar.

[Scott Free]

You know, sometimes those old students of yours will show up, come out of the woodwork, and surprise you with their.

[Lori]

Requests and praise and recruiting you to be a co host for our podcast.

[Scott Free]

Co host? A podcast? Yeah, that's usually how it works out in my experience. Literally. That has now happened to me twice. You will recall, before I was co host of This I was co host of the Fly Nerd group. So shout out to my Fly nerds. And this concludes the shouts out.

[Lori]

Okay, so we are still in 1991. Who knew that 1991 was such an epic year for album releases?

[Scott Free]

It was a really big year with a lot of incredibly influential albums. And we have done some deep cuts, lesser known albums, but the one we are covering today is about as big as they come.

[Lori]

Yes, we're talking about Pearl Jam's debut.

[Scott Free]

Album, ten, Just a monster hit. Although, turns out it was a bit of a slow rise. Although it's considered one of the seminal grunge albums and one of the first wave of grunge grunge albums, it did not take off nearly as quickly as, say, Nevermind by Nirvana, but we'll get into that. And there was friction between those two bands at the beginning. We'll talk about that too.

[Lori]

Okay.

[Scott Free]

For me, at the time when grunge really began to rise, I was listening to other stuff. I was a pretty hardcore new wave fan still. I was listening to a lot of hip hop and then older classic rock. So grunge sort of crept into my consciousness and then bam, all of a sudden it was there. And looking at the history of Pearl Jam, it was like, band formed in 1990, 1991, 10. Their debut album comes out by 1992. It's a massive hit and it just seems like, okay, that is a quick and easy instant fame rock star story that, you know, good for them. Digging deeper as I had to for this episode, I realized it wasn't quite that quick. It wasn't quite that easy. Yes, Pearl Jam in its final Pearl Jam form happened in 1990, but this band came out of a couple other bands and evolution throughout the 80s, really. 1984, a Seattle band by the name of Green river forms and they are credited with creating the first grunge record, Come on down. In 1986, Green river splits due to creative differences and two members from that band, Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament, guitar player and bass player respectively, go into a band called Mother Love Bone, which I know you have a little bit more info on, right, Laurie?

[Lori]

I do, yes. Before I forget, let me start off by citing my sources. There were two books that I relied on heavily for this episode. One of them is called Long Road, Pearl Jam and the Soundtrack of a Generation by Stephen Haydn and Everybody Loves Our Town, An Oral History of Grunge by Mark Yarmouth.

[Scott Free]

Right on. I, on the other hand, kind of phoned it in a little harder. I I will tell you when I am quoting from the Wikipedias, but there are a couple other articles that creep up here and there on particular songs, but, you know, plenty of information for something this big and beloved by so many people as Pearl Jam is.

[Lori]

Here you go. So, as far as I'm concerned, the Pearl Jam story really begins on March 19, 1990, with the heroin overdose death of Andrew Wood. He was the lead vocalist of Mother Love Bone. Now, unfortunately, this was four months before the release of the band's first and only album called Apple. I do remember hearing of this band and.

[Scott Free]

Yeah, a name like that sticks with you.

[Lori]

Yes, yes. And just kind of being surprised that, you know, after one album I'd never heard anything further. I didn't realize that the singer had died.

[Scott Free]

Right.

[Lori]

So Stone Gossert, who you mentioned, he was the rhythm guitarist of Mother Love Bone. As a means of coping with Andrew's death, Stone Gossard really threw himself into writing new music. He recruited Jeff Ament, the bassist for Mother Love Bone, and his childhood friend, lead guitarist Mike McCready. And he started a new band called Mookie Blaylock, after the basketball player.

[Scott Free]

Good old Mookie Blaylock.

[Lori]

Yes. They recorded five instrumental demos on a cassette tape and started passing the tape around.

[Scott Free]

I believe that tape was the stone gosser demos. 91, right?

[Lori]

Yes, that sounds about right.

[Scott Free]

And they were shopping it around, looking for additional members to join the band, especially a front man, a lead singer.

[Lori]

Yes, and a drummer and a drummer.

[Scott Free]

Pearl Jam is one of those bands that we see so often, practically Spinal Tap level, of just a revolving door of drummers. Although they had one who did make it through the recording of this first album, one Dave Krewson, who was brought in via the stone gossard demos. 91.

[Lori]

Yes. Well, let's back it up a little bit. So on the demos, on the demos, Soundgarden's drummer Matt Cameron actually played. But because he was in Soundgarden and that band was blowing up, he couldn't commit to drumming full time for Mookie Blaylock. So they started auditioning new drummers and a new singer. Here's where it gets interesting and there's a little bit of a tie in to one of your favorite bands, Scott. The Clash.

[Scott Free]

Ooh, yeah.

[Lori]

So in 1989 in San Diego, there was a 24 year old gas station attendant named Eddie Vedder. He worked full time at the gas station and then he worked for free in the evenings at a local rock club called the Bacchanal. And he was happy to do it because he was getting a chance to rub elbows with pictures people in the music industry. Eddie was a huge fan of the Clash, and he was excited to see Joe Strummer at the club in 1989. So because Eddie was a member of the crew, he was present for the sound check, but unfortunately Joe was not. But Joe's drummer, Jack Irons, was there. He and Eddie struck up a conversation, and they became friends. And it was Jack Irons who would slip Eddie a demo tape of a band in Seattle that was looking for a singer. Eddie listened to the tape, and he was also a surfer, so he loved surfing. He went surfing, and the lyrics came into his head. So he was drawn in particular to three tracks on this demo, Dollar Short, Egyptian Cave, and Times of Trouble. So he actually took an old Merle Haggard cassette tape, put tape over the right protection so he could record over it, and recorded himself singing his new lyrics to these three songs. He put a piece of tape on it that was titled Mama Sing Son S O N. And we'll learn more about why he called it that in a little bit. And he sent the cassette tape back to Stone and Jeff, who invited Eddie up to Seattle to audition for the band. In November of 1990, while Eddie Vedder was in Seattle auditioning, Soundgarden vocalist Chris Cornell wrote some songs in tribute to his late friend Andrew Wood. And he approached Wood's former Mother Love Bone bandmates Stone Gossert and Jeff Ament, with the intention of releasing the songs as a single.

[Scott Free]

All right.

[Lori]

Ament described this collaboration in a KISW 99.9 FM interview as a really good thing at the time, a band situation where we could play and make music. So the band's lineup was completed by the addition of Soundgarden and later Pearl Jam drummer Matt Cameron. So he wasn't the Pearl Jam drummer yet. And future Pearl Jam lead guitarist Mike McCready, who was Gossard's childhood friend. They named themselves Temple of the Dog, which was a reference to a line in the lyrics of a Mother Love Bone song. Man of golden words, huh?

[Scott Free]

It all comes together, right?

[Lori]

And it was interesting to me how much overlap there was between some of these bands. So, anyway, Eddie Vedder's up in Seattle for his audition, and he was hanging out with the band. He was at one of the Temple of the Dog rehearsals and ended up providing backing vocals on a few songs, including one called Hunger Strike.

[Scott Free]

Oh, yeah, Hunger Strike is great.

[Lori]

So it essentially was a duet between Chris Cornell and Eddie Vedder.

[Scott Free]

So, yeah, that goes beyond backing vocals because their voices are very different and they do alternate parts.

[Lori]

Yes.

[Scott Free]

Yeah.

[Unknown Speaker]

But it's on the table. The fire and the farmers babies and the slaves are out working and it's on the table the mounds are joking But I'm going hungry I'm going hungry.

[Lori]

So Chris Cornell was still figuring out the vocals at practice, and Eddie Vedder just stepped in and filled in the blanks. Chris Cornell later said he sang half of that song, not even knowing that I'd wanted the part to be there. And he sang it exactly the way I was thinking about doing it, just instinctively. So Hunger Strike became the Temple of the Dog's breakout single. And it was also Eddie Vedder's first featured vocal on a record.

[Scott Free]

Dang. That is a big debut.

[Lori]

Right? His distinctive voice, it's unmistakable on that song.

[Scott Free]

Oh, yeah. He's got that growling baritone that, yeah, really works. And against Chris Cornell's kind of sharper, brighter, often higher voice. Yeah, it's a good matchup.

[Lori]

Absolutely. So around this time when Temple of the Dogs album was being released, Mookie Blaylock was starting to come together. But they decided on changing their name, thankfully. So they changed their name to Pearl. Jamie and Jeff Ament requested that A and M records include a Pearl Jam sticker on the COVID of Temple of the Dog because it would be helpful to them.

[Scott Free]

Sure. Cross promotion.

[Lori]

But A and M refused.

[Scott Free]

Oh, really?

[Lori]

Yeah. Now, as far as the name Pearl Jam is concerned, there's definitely some legends about it, but nobody seems to know definitively where it came from. I always just thought it was something kind of nasty.

[Scott Free]

I think that's what most people think.

[Lori]

Yeah. But supposedly Eddie claimed that, like, his grandmother was named Pearl or something.

[Scott Free]

The band claimed at the time that the name came from the hallucinogenic jam Vetter's great Grandma Pearl used to make. But the story is most likely a fabrication.

[Lori]

Yeah, it seemed like some bs. But anyway, as I had mentioned earlier, Matt Cameron, who was the full time drummer for Soundgarden, couldn't commit to Pearl Jam, so they auditioned Dave Krewson and Dave became the first full time drummer for Pearl Jam. And as we'll talk about when we get to the. Where are they Now, Krewson only stayed with Pearl Jam through the completion of recording of this album.

[Scott Free]

Yeah, through the completion of 10. He did not even get to tour with them to support it for personal reasons.

[Lori]

Right, yeah. Now, the other thing that I couldn't find. Well, no, I swear I read it, but I can't find it now is why they called the album 10.

[Scott Free]

Yeah, I always just assumed it was because it was a 10 track album, but in fact it's 11. They changed their name from Mookie Blaylock to Pearl Jam because record execs were concerned about intellectual property and the naming rights, since Mookie Blaylock was actually already a famous person. So in commemoration of the band's original name, the band titled the album 10 after Blaylock's jersey number.

[Lori]

Oh, it was number 10. Oh, that makes sense. Okay.

[Scott Free]

Yeah. Makes that make a lot more sense in an album with 11 tracks.

[Lori]

Yes. So the band entered London Bridge studios in Seattle, Washington in March of 1991 with a producer named Rick Parashar. Stone and Jeff had worked with Rick on Temple of the Dog, so they asked him to co produce and engineer their new album. Rick Parashar also contributed piano, organ, percussion, and he co wrote the intro and outro of the album that we're going to talk about. A few of the tracks on the album were previously recorded at London Bridge in January, but the only one that they carried over from that session was alive.

[Scott Free]

Right. We already talked about how Stone Gossard had recorded some of the tracks that would go on to become songs on Pearl Jam 10 during those demos that allowed them to get Eddie Vetter and Dave Cru to join the band. Quoted in an article on Loudwire, an article by Chad Childer's unpopular opinion, Pearl Jam's verses is better than 10 from January 24th of this year. Mike McCready said of the songwriting on 10. 10 was mostly stone and Jeff, guitar and bass players, respectively. Me, that is to say, Mike McCready and Eddie were along for the ride at the time. And he also added in a 1994 interview in Bass Player magazine, we knew we were still a long way from being a real band at that point. So in a lot of ways you can kind of look at Pearl Jam. 10 is kind of the beta test of this band. It wasn't a fully gelled completed product just yet, and yet it became an absolutely monstrous hit and gave way to Pearl Jam becoming one of the biggest bands on earth.

[Lori]

You know, in giving this album a relisten, and I honestly have not listened to it since maybe 92 or 93. From beginning to end, what really strikes me is that this is not what I would consider a grunge album.

[Scott Free]

All right, so a couple things there. I think I listened to this album all the way through once. I think I've mentioned this in the past lifelong Closest friend, Rob, he went to Northwestern. I went to University of Michigan. He would have a habit of showing up wherever I lived in Ann Arbor saying, get in the car. You got to hear this album. And driving around and forcing me to listen to an entire album. And oftentimes it worked out great. Tom Waits, Bone Machine, the Beastie Boys, Paul's Boutique. Still one of my top two favorite albums. Pearl Jam was one of them. I was like, yeah, it's good. I don't. I don't love it yet, but little did I know. And he was way ahead of the curve on this one. This album would go on to become incredibly big, and I would know many of the songs from it, but that was really the only time I listened to it all the way through. Rest of the time, just hear a single, see a video, hear a song, deep cut on the radio, or whatever else. I liked it, I didn't love it. But, yeah, this feels. We think of grunge and there are four names that are really inextricably linked with this movement. The early days of this movement, and it is Soundgarden. We've already mentioned Alice In Chains, Nirvana and Pearl Jam. And you and I did an entire episode on Nirvana. Nevermind. And Nirvana was at their heart, actually a punk band. Right. Their songs were loud and fast and with a punk raw spirit to it and that anger underneath it. Pearl. Jamie, while lumped into the grunge movement by mostly record execs and radio stations, feels a lot more like a classic rock band. Like they have a lot more in common with Deep Purple or Led Zeppelin. Yeah, Led Zeppelin. People always say Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix are who you really can associate Pearl Jam with. And there's a few songs where that feels true for the most part on this album. It's a little even more straightforward than Zeppelin. And, yeah, they're hard driving rock songs with a lot of distortion and big drums, but, yeah, it's not as strictly blues rock as Zeppelin was or Hendrix was playing anyway. It has this bigger rock and roll feel, almost classic rock, sometimes bordering on stadium rock feel, feeling that, you know, it doesn't have a lot in common with Nevermind, other than there's a lot of distortion on those guitars and the drummer is banging the shit out of that set.

[Lori]

Well, and I'm glad you mentioned arena rock, because one of Eddie Vedder's big influences was Pete Townshend of the who, for sure. Yeah, I don't know if it was labeled grunge because the record execs were trying to capitalize on the popularity of the grunge scene or if it's because of this crossover with the members of Mother Love Bone and Temple of the Dog, the collaboration with guys from Soundgarden, you know.

[Scott Free]

Yeah. So speaking of Nirvana and Nevermind, as I was a moment ago, the two bands had a bit of a dust up in the media. There was a bit of animosity between them and it was mostly of Kurt Cobain against Eddie veteran Pearl Jam. Let's see here. Kurt said in an interview with flip side in 1992, I can't comment on Soundgarden because I know them personally and I really like them a lot. But I have strong feelings towards Pearl Jam and Alice in Chains and bands like that. They're obviously just corporate puppets that are just trying to jump on the alternative bandwagon and we are being lumped into that category. As if that wasn't enough, he doubled down, saying, those bands have been in the hairspray cockrock scene for years and all of a sudden they stop washing their hair and start wearing flannel shirts. It doesn't make any sense to me. There are bands moving from LA and all over Seattle and then claim they've lived here all their life so they can get record deals. It really offends me. From there. He went on to Pearl Jam in particular, saying, especially Pearl Jam. I can't really call Pearl Jam macho, but it's not the kind of stuff that I'm into, as you can imagine. That didn't sit especially well, and Eddie Vedder did try to take it in stride. A year after that interview, Cobain did try to walk it back a bit. He's saying there never was a feud. I slagged them off because I didn't like their band. I hadn't met Eddie at the time. It was my fault. I should have been slagging off the record company instead of them. They were marketed, not probably against their will, but but without them realizing they were being pushed into the grunge bandwagon. This from metro.co.uk the surprising truth about the infamous Nirvana and Pearl Jam feud By brooke Ivy Johnson February 10th of this year. So people are still talking about it. Not just you and me. Kurt Cobain was opinionated. He had things to say about a lot of things. That said, while I think Pearl Jam and Nirvana have very distinctly different sounds, there are commonalities in terms of sort of rejecting the very slick, polished sound that came in the decade before, in the 80s, a return to big guitars. Even if Nirvana's tended to be a little cleaner in the studio, recording wise, still with distortion, whereas Pearl Jam favored huge reverb and huge distortion. And again, that sound as if they were playing in a huge room. So, you know, there are commonalities, there are differences. It was a moment, it was that they were both from Seattle. It was a return to a previous era of rock, but with a new spin. Even if the specific bands that they were hearkening back to were were different from one band to the other. Ultimately genres tend to be slapped on bands after the fact. Not a lot of bands come into it saying, I want to make music of this particular marketing label.

[Lori]

Yeah, yeah. Well, that seems like a good place to begin the track by track. As we get started here, the beginning of track one actually has a hidden track. There's two hidden tracks on this album. And Scott, when I texted you about this the other day, you seemed very surprised.

[Scott Free]

Yeah, you were like, should we include the hidden track? And I was like, the what now?

[Lori]

Right.

[Scott Free]

Again, I did not own the cd, so it never came up for me.

[Lori]

Gotcha. Well, the instrumental, it's called Master Slave. Master Slave. And it was written by the producer Rick Parashar. So it's interesting because this Master Slave instrumental appears twice on the album. First at the very beginning of track one and then again at the end of the album. So let's listen to a little bit of Master Slave. So that's kind of, you know, a little bit of a mood setter.

[Scott Free]

Yeah, yeah. It's. As album openers go, it is a slow burn. Like it's this slow, groovy baseline with congas and auxiliary percussion, feedbacky guitars and a whole lot of reverb on everything. And honestly, this, the beginning, this intro part starts out sounding like it could be something off of like a Jane's Addiction album or something like that. It is not a particularly good sample of what's about to come, but, you know, ease you into it before then. At the 42nd mark, the big guitar comes in with this fast chugging herky jerky just straight up. And I'm making the throwing up the rock horns here.

[Lori]

Rock, yes. It segues into the song called Once.

[Unknown Speaker]

Back Street Lover on the side of the road I got a bomb in my temple that is going to explode I got a six figure case buried under my cold I played Once upon a time I could control myself one Once upon a time I could lose myself.

[Scott Free]

Again. You hear Pearl Jam constantly compared to Led Zeppelin or sometimes Hendrix. And we'll hear that in some of the slower numbers a little later. And there's songs, yeah. Where that is true, but here, this, again, feels to me more like Deep Purple, like Space Truckin or Highway Star or something like that. Like, it's a fast driving rock song.

[Lori]

This song originated as an instrumental demo on that Stone Gosser demos 91 tape that we talked about. It was originally called Egyptian Crave. So this was one of the three tracks that Eddie Vedder was inspired to write and record lyrics for. Sent to the band, Got him invited to audition. The lyrics of this one are very interesting because the song tells the tale of a man's descent into madness which leads him into becoming a serial killer.

[Scott Free]

And, yeah, strangely, this is the one where Eddie Vedder listened to the Stone Gosser demo, went surfing, and the lyrics occurred to him while he was surfing. Which is a weird sort of contrast between this sort of at one with nature thing and then the worst of humanity in the lyrics. Right.

[Lori]

Yes.

[Scott Free]

Okay. A thing about Eddie Vedder and Eddie Vedder lyrics, on a good day, when he's really projecting, the lyrics are not always the most intelligible. He's got this again, baritone growl. He takes great liberties with pronunciation and twisting the notes and enunciation just to make it expressive beyond strictly the lyrical content. Right. Like, his voice is an instrument. And so oftentimes, you know, these are songs that I've heard hundreds of times, and I will not lie to you. No idea what the lyrics are to a lot of them.

[Lori]

So the first verse, backstreet lover on the side of the road. So he's picking up a victim, presumably. I got a bomb in my temple that is going to explode I got a 16 gauge buried under my clothes I play and then the next verse. Indian summer I hate the heat I got a backstreet lover on the passenger seat so now he's picked her up, right? She's in the car. I got my hand in my pocket so determined, discreet I pray so it seems like he's conflicted, you know, Is he gonna go through with it? Isn't he gonna go through with it? And that's that whole chorus. Once upon a time I could control myself Right. Yeah.

[Scott Free]

During the breakdown, Eddie Vedder is doing a sort of spoken part, really muttering more than anything else. And it turns out what he is saying during there. You think I got my eyes closed but I'm looking at you the whole fucking time. Ooh, Right. Menacing. Yeah. I mean, slow burn intro and then just a straight up rocker. And it is a good introduction to the different moods that Pearl Jam may give you as the album goes on. That, I suppose, brings us to track two. And you all know this one. Evenflower.

[Unknown Speaker]

Chases them away. Yeah.

[Scott Free]

Pearl Jam oftentimes, as we said, gets compared to Led Zeppelin, like a lot. But this is another one of those where I'm hearing more Jimi Hendrix, actually. And specifically the main guitar riff is a lot like the main guitar riff to Hendrix's Voodoo Child. Slight return just sped up from a leisurely 88 beats per minute in the Hendrix version to a respectably rocking 105bpm drinks. Abe for those of you just tuning in for the first time, we've got a whole thing with Don't Worry about it. Every time I mention bpm, Zabe has to drink. And you thought you were going to get away with it on a Pearl Jam album, but you will never get away from it. Zabe. But for real, though, that main guitar riff is remarkably similar.

[Lori]

Before I get into the lyrical content and how this relates to that Mama sun tape, most of the songs on this album were recorded in just a few takes. But this one was the exception. And depending on who you ask, it took anywhere between 50 and 100 takes. The bassist Jeff Ament said to Musician magazine In April of 1998, I knew it was a great song all along, and I felt that it was the best song that we got the worst take of on the first record. There were a hundred takes of that song and we just never nailed it. And then Mike McCready told the Daily Record on March 9, 2009, we did even flow about 50, 70 times. I swear to God, it was a nightmare.

[Scott Free]

Interesting bit that McCready also talked about on the song, though. So Stone Gosser doing the rhythm guitar, McCready comes in doing the guitar lead solo line. And McCready said of this, this just from the Wikipedia, that's me pretending to be Stevie Ray Vaughan. And a feeble attempt at that. Stone wrote the riff in the song. I think it's a D tuning. I just followed him in a regular pattern. I tried to steal everything I know from Stevie Ray Vaughan and put it into that song. A blatant ripoff, a tribute ripoff, if you will.

[Lori]

You gotta love Stevie Ray Vaughan, though.

[Scott Free]

You know, he was very good.

[Lori]

Yes, yes, and well. And then Dave Crusin, the drummer, had a hard time playing with this track. He said they had to edit the middle because I was speeding up at the end. It was just a nightmare. So it's two band members calling the song a nightmare.

[Scott Free]

Yeah. And you know when you hear them do live versions, it tends to go faster than the album version. They did film a video for Evenflo, but they recorded it like a year after the album came out, 1992 I believe. And it's a live performance video and they recorded a new version of the song to accompany it and it is a little faster. And by that point drummer Dave Krewson had already left the band. So that is one of the first tracks with new drummer Matt Cameron on it.

[Lori]

Now, if I'm not mistaken, they re recorded the song for the video at the same time that they recorded their songs for the singles movie soundtrack.

[Scott Free]

I will believe that to be true.

[Lori]

And for our paid Patreon subscribers, we will have some bonus content related to the movie singles. So check it out. Patreon.com acceleratedculturepodcast you know that video is a blast.

[Scott Free]

Like they are a band who has suddenly been thrust into the spotlight. Some of them after a bunch of years of work at it. But as a band, they've only really been on the scene two years. Their album's only been out for a year, and it's a huge, incredibly enthusiastic crowd. Eddie Vedder is headbanging so hard that he falls down and you know, this is a band that is just clearly having a blast and just a little freaked out at the level of fame that they are already achieving. And in that video you start to get a glimpse of why Pearl Jam became such a massive live act. When they were touring, their shows were incredibly energetic and Eddie Vedder became known for his onstage antics, in particular climbing. He's not supposed to be climbing. And in the video for Even Flow, he is climbing all over the stage and hanging from things in a way that looks incredibly dangerous. There's a Spin magazine article. Revisit our August 2001 Pearl Jam oral history. Post 10 by Eric Wiesbar on August 1, 2017 Eddie better recounts his on stage antics. He was notorious for crowd surfing and climbing stuff. Speakers Trust Towers. I know that was really stupid, beyond ridiculous. But to be honest, we were playing before Nirvana. They were opening for Nirvana. You had to do something. Our first record was good, but their first record was better. So Eddie Vedder was overcompensating in live shows by just going huge and ridiculous and sometimes dangerous. But boy, the crowds loved it.

[Lori]

So the lyrics of this one. And again, you know, you mentioned earlier that Eddie's lyrics are mostly unintelligible. You can pick up little pieces here and there, but this is about a.

[Scott Free]

Homeless person, a homeless Vietnam vet that Eddie Vedder actually would encounter in Seattle.

[Lori]

Oh, okay. So he's freezing, rests his head on a pill made of concrete, and then there's some references that seem like they could be mental illness. Thoughts arrive like butterflies. He don't know, so he chases them away. So, I mean, that could be. That could be ptsd. That could be schizophrenia. There's a number of things that that could be describing. He looks insane when he smiles and struggles to keep coherent thoughts even. Flow was released on March 30, 1992, as the second single from this album. It peaked at number three on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks chart.

[Scott Free]

Yeah, and so, like, I had this debate with one of the bands that I'm frontman of that does alternative music covers mostly. And among the band members, they're like, well, what is alternative even? And, like, how do you define it? And it's cases like this that make that such a blurry line, because a huge alternative album where the single is number three on the mainstream rock charts. This is early in the grunge game, and already grunge is mainstream and getting to the tops of the mainstream charts. So it's a blurry lie. It's senseless marketing talk, really.

[Lori]

Okay. So the next track, track three, was the first song that Pearl Jam ever played together. This is alive.

[Unknown Speaker]

Can'T see him But I'm glad we talk oh, I'm still alive I'm still alive I'm still alive.

[Scott Free]

This is another one of those Stone Guther demos, originally an instrumental entitled Dollar Short, and it was originally written by him when he was still in Mother Love Bone.

[Lori]

Yeah. So when Eddie wrote the lyrics to this, it was a fictionalized account, somewhat based on his own experience of the time that he was told that the man he thought was his father was not actually his biological parent.

[Scott Free]

Yes. So the backstory. Eddie Vedder was actually born Edward Louis Severson iii, his biological father, Edward Lewis Severson ii. And Eddie's mother, her maiden name was Vedder, divorced when Eddie was an infant. His mother remarried to a guy who was not a good guy, apparently. And Eddie only actually knew his biological father as a family friend who he had met a couple times growing up. When Eddie was in his late teens, his mother divorced his stepfather, and soon thereafter, he learned the identity of his real father. But by that point, Edward Lewis Severinson II had died of multiple sclerosis. So Eddie wrote this song about him. This actually is reflected directly in the lyrics. Son, she said, I got a little story for you what you thought Was your daddy was nothing but a. While you were sitting home alone at age 13, your real daddy was dying. Sorry you didn't see him, but I'm glad we talked. I'm like, what a way to find out that the guy you thought was your father wasn't your father. And, oh, by the way, your father's dad. Yeah, rough.

[Lori]

Yeah, that's dark. This is a good point, I think, to get into this whole Mama Son tape, the trilogy, the mini opera that we referred to earlier, the three instrumental demos that Eddie wrote, recorded some lyrics and sent back to the band that got him the audition. The first one on the tape was this one, Alive. As you mentioned, it was originally dollar Short. The second one was Once, and the third one was a song called Footsteps. And he's even jokingly referred to this as like his Nutcracker Suite because it tells a story. And this is a really dark story. Alive is about a mother who pursues an incestuous relationship with her son after the boy's father dies. Once is about how the kid is scarred for life by the sexual abuse and subsequently becomes a serial killer. And then the third one was called Footsteps, which was about how the killer ends up on Death Row and is finally executed. Now, that one did not make the album, and it eventually became a Temple of the Dog song called Tunes of Trouble, with different vocal melodies and different lyrics. You mentioned earlier, Scott, how Eddie Vedder was inspired while he was surfing.

[Scott Free]

Right?

[Lori]

This is what he came up with while he was surfing. This very dark trilogy from incest to becoming a serial killer. Then ultimately the killer being on Death Row, man.

[Scott Free]

A bit about the recording of it and the performances in the guitars. In particular, they recorded Alive during one of the demo sessions at London Bridge in January of 1991. The version recorded during this session would later appear on ten and on the promotional Alive ep. This from the Wikipedia. During album mixing sessions in England In June of 1991, mixer Tim Palmer had McCready add to the song's outro solo. McCready recorded a number of attempts at the solo, and Palmer edited them into a composite version. The guitarist McCre was unsatisfied with the result, so he made another attempt at the solo, this time using a univibe. While recording Univibe, which is an effects pedal with a phaser for creating vibrato and chorus simulations, he had another go at it, Palmer recalled, and got it right away. There was no piecing together to do. It was one take. So sometimes the band would struggle with having to record the Things over and over and over again, and then sometimes just one little tweak and everything falls into place.

[Lori]

So, as I mentioned, this was the first song they ever played together. It was also the band's first single. It peaked at number 16 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks chart and number 18 on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart. This was a really important song in the band's history. Not just because it's the first one they played together, but this is where I think people really started to notice them. You know, Again, it got them the attention. It got them the attention. Yeah.

[Scott Free]

Yeah. I recall seeing it first on a compilation way back in the day. And, yeah, it was notable. I suppose. That brings us to track four, why Go.

[Unknown Speaker]

As she does it's been two years and counting since they put her around this place Case she's been diagnosed by some stupid fog There might be a reason why go home? Why go home? Why go home?

[Scott Free]

All right, this one is notable in that the music is written by bass player Jeff Ament, and of course, lyrics by Eddie Better.

[Lori]

And the lyrics are about a girl that is institutionalized.

[Scott Free]

Yeah. From lyrics. Genius. It's a cheat sheet, but it's fine. This song is about a girl who was put in a mental hospital against her will for two years and without any actual mental illness. Why Go refers to the lack of motivation to go back home after spending time unjustly in this place. Should also be noted that in the liner notes 4 10. Eddie Vedder dedicates the song to a girl named Heather. And in a 1991 interview on KLOL in Houston, he did specify that it was about a specific girl in Chicago. Based on a true story. Chicago connection for you, we'll always find one.

[Lori]

I just got goosebumps.

[Scott Free]

Yeah, right.

[Lori]

Well, because, I mean, this was also me. I mean, really, I'm not going to go. Yeah. I'm not going to go in any detail. Wasn't two years, but yes. So, yeah, it's been two years and counting since they put her in this place. She's been diagnosed by some stupid fuck and Mommy agrees. Yeah. And then she seems to be stronger, but what they want her to be is weak. She could play pretend. She could join the Game boy. She could be another clone. So in that kind of an environment, you learn very quickly that they take away privileges if you don't conform to a very specific behavior that they want.

[Scott Free]

Right.

[Lori]

And that's what I think that is. Yeah.

[Scott Free]

Yeah. And she, in the lyrics, she refuses a visit from her mother, the one who put her there for what was a false claim of mental illness. Musically, it's a pretty straightforward, hard driving rock track. And also, both in lyrical content and musically, it's a lot like Evenflo. That one about homelessness, this one about mental illness and institutionalization. And this is one that the band has played a lot live. If you actually go to Pearl Jam's website, every one of their songs, they have lyrics and they have when it was first played, when it was last played in concert, and how many times they played this song. 478 times live.

[Lori]

Wow.

[Scott Free]

Right?

[Lori]

Yeah.

[Scott Free]

These guys tour, though. They really. They really play out.

[Lori]

I've never seen them, have you?

[Scott Free]

I have not.

[Lori]

Okay, well, that's all I got on that one.

[Scott Free]

That seems like plenty.

[Lori]

Okay. All right. Well, then the next track is called Black.

[Unknown Speaker]

And all I taught her was everything I know she gave me all that she wore and now my bitter hands shake Beneath the clouds of what was everything all the pictures.

[Scott Free]

Well, once again, another one of the Stone Gosser demos, written by Stone in 1990. Its original title was E. The letter E, the key of E. Ballad. E ballad. And, you know, it's your usual band lineup, plus Rick Parashar on piano and Hammond organ. Always a fan of the Hammond organ. So I'm there for that.

[Lori]

Yeah. And that was the producer guy.

[Scott Free]

You know, the song opens quiet. It's got that opening guitar just all treble as if being heard on a scratchy AM radio. And then later, Mike McCready was trying with his lead guitar line to once again channel his inner Stevie Ray Vaughan. Stevie Ray had a more delicate touch. He could do, you know, blinding harder rock. But his re. He really shone when he was playing the more soulful guitar lines. And I think that's what McCree was going for and achieving. Here in Black.

[Lori]

There was a documentary that came out for the 20 year anniversary of 10. It was called Pearl Jam 20. And Eddie Vedder said that the song is about first relationships.

[Scott Free]

Yes.

[Lori]

So he said, I've heard it said that you can't really have a true love unless it was a love unrequited. It's a harsh one, because then your truest one is the one you can't have forever.

[Scott Free]

I mean, some teenage angst and totally relatable, right? Yeah. Oh, we've all been there.

[Lori]

Oh, yeah. Interestingly enough, on this one, Epic Records was really pressuring the band to release this one as a single, but they felt that it was too personal. And Eddie Vedder actually said fragile songs get crushed by the business. I don't want to be a part of it. I don't think the band wants to be a part of it.

[Scott Free]

And the band was also bristling at this stratospheric fame they had achieved. Yes, they already had four singles under their belt between Alive, Even Flow, and a couple that we will hear about in the tracks to come. And they didn't want to milk the album. They didn't want, want more fame, and they didn't want to, as you say, crush this delicate song in the wheels of the music industry.

[Lori]

Eddie Vedder actually called radio stations to double check and make sure that the record label hadn't released it as a.

[Scott Free]

Single behind his back, because they were playing it anyways. Sometimes when an album is that big and they stop releasing singles, the radio station's just like, well, people want more Pearl Jam. What are we going to do? Find another track on the album and just play that.

[Lori]

Exactly, exactly. And that's the reason why the song charted at number three on the Billboard mainstream rock tracks chart and number 20 on the Billboard modern rock tracks chart in 1993.

[Scott Free]

Dang.

[Lori]

Yeah.

[Scott Free]

With that, we can move on then to another one of the monster singles. That is track six. Jeremy.

[Unknown Speaker]

At home drawing pictures of mountaintops with him on top Lemon yellow sun Arms raising her feet the dead lay in pools of maroon below Daddy didn't give attention oh to the fact that money didn't care.

[Lori]

And of course, you know, anybody whose name actually was Jeremy does not like this song.

[Scott Free]

Again, this is one of those songs that you can just hit play in your head and hear it start to finish. It was everywhere in 1992.

[Lori]

Yes. Just those opening bass lines, Jeff. Immense bass.

[Scott Free]

Oh, so good.

[Lori]

Yeah. And. And the bass actually seems to carry the melody, which is usually something that we would associate with. With guitars. And the song was written by the bassist Jeff Ament, so I guess that kind of makes sense.

[Scott Free]

That tracks.

[Lori]

In April of 1994, Jeff Ement told Bass Player Magazine on Jeremy, I always heard this other melody in the choruses and the end, and it never sounded good on guitar or bass. So we brought in a cello player which inspired a background vocal, and those things made the song really happen.

[Scott Free]

So, yeah, yeah. Another layer to it. And beyond just the normal grunge instrumentation. Yeah. All right. So, you know, I always remember this track, particularly from the video, obviously, being about school violence, school shooters. How to delicately put this, while school shootings were not the craze that they've become amongst the kids these days.

[Lori]

Oh, dear.

[Scott Free]

Right. You know, we were in the era already where it was not unheard of to have violence in schools. And I always thought that this was about a school shooting. And in a way it was, but not in the way you think. So it is based on a true story. One Jeremy Wade Dell, a 15 year old sophomore, brought a gun to school and shot and killed himself in front of his high school English class. Apparently he had come to class late teacher sent him to the office to get a pass and instead he went to his locker, got his gun, came back, got in front of the class and said, miss, I got what I really went for and shut himself. That was Jeremy.

[Lori]

Yes. The interesting thing about this is the song isn't told from the perspective of Jeremy. It's told from the perspective of somebody who bullied Jeremy.

[Scott Free]

Right.

[Lori]

You know, clearly I remember picking on the boy. He seemed a harmless little fuck, but.

[Scott Free]

We unleashed the lion, gnashed his teeth and bit the recessed lady's breast. How could I forget, right?

[Lori]

Eddie Vedder said in 2009, it came from a small paragraph in a paper, which means you kill yourself and you make a big old sacrifice and try to get your revenge, that all you're going to end up with is a paragraph in a newspaper. In the end, it does nothing, nothing changes. The world goes on and you're gone. The best revenge is to live on and prove yourself, be stronger than those people and then you can come back. Thought that was interesting.

[Scott Free]

Yeah. Lyrically, again, this is another one that I've heard the song a gazillion times and only knew a few snippets of the words. And he hit me with a surprise Left my jaw left hurting Ooh, Dropped wide open Just like the day oh, just like the day. I heard the revenge worked, but yeah, it. At what price Jeremy?

[Lori]

Reportedly, the parents of Jeremy Wade Dell were very upset by this song because of the lyrics. Daddy didn't give attention to the fact that mommy didn't care. And by all accounts, Jeremy's parents were actually very attentive and the kid unfortunately had a history of mental illness. Like you said, the video, it's, it's. The visual imagery is just so strong and it's iconic.

[Scott Free]

It is one of those just absolutely anchors you to 1992.

[Lori]

Right. And so like you, I initially interpreted the video as Jeremy shooting up the school.

[Scott Free]

Right.

[Lori]

MTV made the band edit the video. The original video had the kid playing Jeremy put the gun in his own mouth.

[Scott Free]

I can see that not going over well.

[Lori]

Right. Right. Before you see all the blood on the classmates and stuff. MTV made them cut that part out. And I would argue that the resulting video is actually more gruesome because now you don't know if he's killed himself or, you know, if he's killed his classmates, if he's killed his teacher. You know, it. It seems that that interpretation.

[Scott Free]

Well, right. Like, we certainly do not want to encourage teen suicide, but we also don't want to say that shooting other people is better.

[Lori]

Right. Okay. So this was the third single from the album. It was released August 17, 1992. It went to number five on the Billboard mainstream rock track chart and number five on the US Alternative Airplay chart for the Hot 100. It only made number 79. And that was in 1995, by the way.

[Scott Free]

But it was just a constant on mtv. And I would argue that that year MTV was more influential than radio. And yes, absolutely, you didn't have to buy the album because you could just turn on MTV and see that video within an hour.

[Lori]

Yeah. Okay. So the next song on the album is called Oceans. Let's listen.

[Unknown Speaker]

The currents will shift Glide me towards. You know, something's left and we're all allowed to dream of the dance for.

[Scott Free]

So now this one makes the Led Zeppelin comparisons feel apt. Like this track could be off of Led Zeppelin 3, or maybe houses of the Holy. Kind of has like a no quarter feel to it.

[Lori]

And that explains why I don't like it.

[Scott Free]

See, I dig it a lot. But this is, you know, the usual lineup of the band, plus my favorite additional personnel credit on the album. Tim Palmer on Fire Extinguisher and Pepper Shaker, which is just brilliant. Need to find ways to bring fire extinguishers and pepper shakers and more ordinary household objects. Inter Music makes you an industrial band.

[Lori]

But whatever, they don't get credit for being the first one to play the fire extinguisher. The song Baggy Trousers by Madness. The opening notes are banging on a fire extinguisher.

[Scott Free]

Palmer said, the reason I used those items was purely because we were so far from a music rental shop and necessity became the mother of invention. It's just what they had on hand. But it adds that auxiliary percussion to what is a pretty amazing drum track. And that, I think, is why this sounds particularly Zeppelin ish. If you look at the video for it, you can see Dave Krewson on the drums. And, you know, one of the things that's notable in this is there is no snare to it. It is almost all floor toms and some cymbals. Right. But, like, watching the video and he's playing on those toms and it's like. But it sounds bigger than that. And I'm seeing a quote that actually explains why that is gave. Krewen himself saying, we originally tracked Drum Kit on that song. Then I added three timpany parts. I remember we were all in the control room listening to the timpany part with the drums muted. Someone commented on how cool it sounded like that. So we kept it that way. I'm glad we did. And, yeah, it's a really distinctive drum part and just so unusual in that it's not your usual kick and snare situation. The toms and the really low bassy toms and timpani apparently are doing the heavy lifting on this one.

[Lori]

You know, I guess I never caught the fact that there's no snares. Maybe. Maybe that's why this one seemed so weird to me.

[Scott Free]

Yeah, weird good in my book. But obviously your. Your mileage may vary. And then the other thing that kind of gives it a bit of zap feel is the guitar work. And Stone Gussard talked about the guitar parts in particular, and he said, I love Oceans. That probably sums up why I get excited about songwriting. It's like open D tuning, where the first chords just straight across, and it's just two fingers that come on and off to create the whole thing. And then it moves down one position and it moves back up. It has a tiny little change in it, but it's also got three big movements. What I love about music is aesthetic chords, the simpler the better. And then another set that does something to those original chords. It's a really simple arrangement. And. Yeah, I think it is. Yeah. Simple and elegant. It's a pretty song. And, you know, that's not necessarily what you always think of with Pearl Jam. That totally sounds Zeppelin ish. I'm not wrong. That could totally be off Zeppelin 3 or House of the Holly. I'm not wrong.

[Lori]

And you know how much I love Led Zeppelin.

[Scott Free]

Makes no sense to me, but whatever. Not everybody has to like everything.

[Lori]

Yeah, okay. So Eddie Vedder told Seattle Sound magazine in March 2009, I remember for Oceans, someone asked me to put change in the parking meter for them. I went and did that, and then I came back and was locked out. It was drizzling, and I wasn't dressed for an outing in the rain. I had a scrap of paper and a pen in my pocket, and they were playing this song inside. So it was the band. He was locked out. He could hear the Band playing it inside. And he said, all I could hear was the bass coming through the wall, this window that was boarded up. So I wrote the song to the bass. I wasn't even listening to hear the song at first. When I heard a break, I'd start pounding on the door trying to get out of the rain. So as I was doing that, I thought, fuck it, I might as well write something. Supposedly this song was inspired by Eddie Vedder's love for surfing. Big surprise there. When they did their MTV Unplugged Performance In 1992, Eddie Vedder introduced it as a little love song I wrote about my surface. No, actually, it's to somebody named Beth, who hopefully I'll see tomorrow.

[Scott Free]

Yeah, Beth leaving his then girlfriend, who would later become his wife and now is his ex wife. Got a whole arc there in one sentence.

[Lori]

There you go. There's something interesting with the way this single was released. So it was the fourth single from the album, and it was released as a single on December 7, 1992, but the commercial single was not released in the United States until two and a half years later, June 27, 1995.

[Scott Free]

They really got a lot of mileage out of this album.

[Lori]

They did. Now, I don't know why there was that delay, but if you were a fan prior to June of 95, if you wanted the single, then you'd have to get it as a more expensive importance.

[Scott Free]

Right?

[Lori]

Yeah.

[Scott Free]

Well, that brings us to track number eight, Porch.

[Unknown Speaker]

And the Cross I'm Bearing Home. Indicative of my place. Left the boys, left the bo.

[Scott Free]

This one just rocks. It's a big, fast, hard rock song.

[Lori]

Yep.

[Scott Free]

I don't have a ton to say about it other than rock.

[Lori]

Well, I know that they've been known to close their sets with this, and then they do a very long kind of instrumental jam.

[Scott Free]

Jammy version of it.

[Lori]

Exactly. And then as you mentioned earlier about how Eddie Vedder likes to climb up on things, when they do this long instrumental break, he's been known to hang off of railings, jump into the crowd, or climb the set. I guess he famously did that at Lollapalooza. 92.

[Scott Free]

Oh, interesting.

[Lori]

What?

[Scott Free]

I may need to revise my answer. I have seen Pearl Jam Live at Lollapaloo, the 1992.

[Lori]

Really?

[Scott Free]

I guess it didn't make that big an impression.

[Lori]

Oh, wow. Okay. This was also one of Pearl Jam's first songs. Eddie Vedder wrote the lyrics while he was in transit from San Diego to Seattle in November of 90 on his way to meet the other band Members. The lyrics are pretty vague, as Eddie Vedder tends to do, but it does seem to talk about a romantic breakup. At least that's my spin on it.

[Scott Free]

Yes, but like, I have one stanza written here. All the bills go by and initiatives are taken up by the middle. There ain't gonna be a middle anymore. And the cross I'm bearing home Ain't indicative of my place Left the porch. My one note I have on that is I have no idea what's going on here.

[Lori]

Okay. All right. You know, it's funny how this album's really very heavily front loaded, where all of the big hits are on the first five or six tracks, and then after that, I don't know most of these on the second half of the album. I could take it or leave it, you know.

[Scott Free]

Yeah, I mean, it's interesting to hear them now, just because so many of the songs on that front loaded first half, you know, so well, you don't really need to hear them again. So I'm hearing these for the second time ever, and I. I think they're good. There's a reason that the huge singles became the huge singles. And, you know, they're. They're tracks coming up that I think really have something. But, okay, this. This one, it's a big, fast, hard rock song, and sometimes that's all you need. I don't understand the lyrics, but you can't understand the lyrics anyways. So.

[Lori]

Then the next song on the album is called Garden.

[Unknown Speaker]

Will Walk with My Face. Lord, I will walk with my shadow.

[Lori]

I completely forgotten about this song. Scott, do you happen to know what this one's about?

[Scott Free]

Yes, yes, I do. Although largely because I read other people's opinions of it.

[Lori]

Okay, well, Eddie Vedder confirmed that this song was originally written about the Gulf War in 1991.

[Scott Free]

Yeah, he actually said as much on stage in 2009 before singing it to a crowd in Sydney, Australia.

[Lori]

Okay, so the garden of stone refers to a military cemetery. And I guess There was a 1987 movie called Garden of Stone that may have inspired the song. But the wilted garden is definitely a metaphor for death and disillusionment. And the narrator, who's given what we know is probably a soldier.

[Scott Free]

A veteran.

[Lori]

Yes, a veteran. Thank you. Questioning his. His. His role.

[Scott Free]

Well, all right. So Pearl Jam is one of those bands who like you too, who we did a episode on just a few episodes ago. One, are loved for the music and two, sometimes criticized for being so self serious. They try to do good in the world by taking up Social causes, but that also makes them a target for people who don't care for that sort of thing. So sometimes Eddie Vedders lyrics can be criticized for this sort of self importance, this seriousness, this over earnest or ham fisted thing. And there's one line in this song that I've seen multiple critics, both at the time and in retrospect, sort of serve up as quintessential, a little too earnest Eddie Vedder. And that was, I don't question our existence, I just question our modern needs. And, you know, if you just take it at face value, okay, maybe a little preachy, but if you take it in the context of this song, Mother of a small child whose father has been killed in a war, and she's questioning why a war like the Gulf War was necessary. And you all remember at the time like it was pretty clearly about the oil. Sure, freedom. And people really care about Kuwait, who most people had never heard of up until that point. But the resounding critique, at least among the left, was that this was a war for America's national interests in cheap oil. So in that context, that line, eh, fair. I will walk with my hands bound. I will walk with my face blood. I will walk with my shadow flag into your garden, Garden of stone. You know, I'm not going to be too mad at Eddie Vedder for trying to make a point about a war that was very recent, in 1990, when this album was being written, 1991, when this album was being written and came out. So, you know, I'm willing to give it to him.

[Lori]

Okay.

[Scott Free]

As far as Pearl Jam songs go, it doesn't quite have the hooks that the big singles do. It's a little more plodding is maybe too uncharitable a word, but it does not have that same kind of energy that you have in some of the earlier ones. But it's intended to be more somber, solid.

[Lori]

Right. It's a. It's a dirge.

[Scott Free]

Yeah, exactly. When people say that 10 is not a grunge album and that Pearl Jam isn't a grunge band, this song, I feel like, does play into that argument. It bears no resemblance to something you would hear on Nevermind or Super Modified or Louder Than Love. So whatever, they're their own band. They didn't all do just one common thing. But this one's a little bit of an outlier on this album, I feel like.

[Lori]

Okay, yeah, no, I agree. It. It does feel a little, I don't want to say out of place because thematically it's not. But musically it does seem a little odd. Yeah.

[Scott Free]

Well, then. Okay, let's move on to track 10.

[Unknown Speaker]

Degrees a window sill upon the stairs Maker upon the stairs Wheel to the street below he does Ain't Nothing but he's got a great View. And he sings deeper into.

[Scott Free]

So, yeah, it opens strong with these huge, distorted, bluesy chords and a wailing lead line. This is the bluesiest, heaviest track on the album. It does have a little bit of the Pixies and Spots inspired loud, quiet, loud thing that Nirvana loved so much. But mostly it's loud. A little less loud. Much louder is kind of the thing. The verses have these huge guitars that then take it easy during the verses, but then come back huge for the chorus. And then after the third verse, like from just before the three minute mark for the rest of the song, everybody in the band is just really going for it all at the same time. It's a pretty jammy, hard, bluesy rock song, and I'm here for it.

[Lori]

Okay, well, you know, it's definitely about heroin use.

[Scott Free]

Is that right?

[Lori]

Oh, I definitely. I mean, if you read the lyrics, he's got a great view and he sinks the needle deep.

[Scott Free]

Yeah, that does check out.

[Lori]

So I kind of have to wonder if maybe it wasn't at least partly inspired by Andrew Wood of Mother Love Bone. But I'm just speculating. I'm not basing that on anything. Author Stephen Haydn, who wrote the Long Road, Pearl Jam and the soundtrack of a generation, has called this song a rejection of youthful nihilism.

[Scott Free]

Yeah, all right. But, you know, when I say earlier that it's. There are songs that are faster and rock harder, but it's got Garden before it that feels kind of dirty. It's slower, but it still has this energy to it. Right. And I think part of that is the arrangement. Part of that is the vocals and that just. It's got this forward motion. It's got the interplay between the two different vocal lines. Like, even if you can't sing along to the Eddie Vedder part, because he's just going off and, like, tearing his heart out in the vocals and vamping and growling and howling, you can still sing along to the do, do, do, do, do part. And. I don't know. Right. I dig this term.

[Lori]

I was going to say it seems like it's about hitting rock bottom, except it's not, because he says, can't touch the bottom in too deep.

[Scott Free]

So in the bridge, on the edge of a Christmas clean love Young virgin down from heaven Visiting Hell to the man above her she just ain't nothing and she doesn't like the view she doesn't like the view she doesn't like the view but he sinks himself deep.

[Lori]

Hey, what does that mean?

[Scott Free]

Some dark imagery there. And I don't think that's the heroine story anymore is kind of what I'm saying.

[Lori]

Okay, so the last track of the album, although there is a hidden track here, but the last official track is Release.

[Unknown Speaker]

On a Rocket Horse Attack Time See the birds in the rain.

[Lori]

Okay.

[Scott Free]

Yeah. Musically, this one is really simple. It's a repeating three chord structure and it just sets it up and keeps going.

[Lori]

I know that the lyrics of this song were improvised the first time they played it. And this is another song about Eddie dealing with the reality that he never knew his real father and that his. The person he thought was his father is actually his stepfather.

[Scott Free]

Right.

[Lori]

Yeah.

[Scott Free]

Release was one of the first songs that Eddie actually wrote with the band, and it's one of those where they realized they had common ground and that they could work together. Addie Vedder was quoted as saying, we were strangers, but we were coming from a similar place. And at first, this song was almost 10 minutes long, as Vetter did release a lot of words when he started singing to it. I wish I could take credit for that, but I'm not that clever. That is from songfacts.com feature on this track.

[Lori]

Okay. There's a book called Five Against One by Kim Neely, and Eddie Vedder is quoted as saying those words. I still refuse to write them down. Even if they need them for publishing, I won't write them down. That was just something I hadn't experienced. Experienced. It was so intense. And for a long time, these lyrics weren't published anywhere. Even when they released The Pearl Jam 10 guitar book, the lyrics were omitted from the sheet music. It wasn't until very recently that apparently Eddie relented. I know you mentioned that you'd seen the lyrics on pearljam.com but for a long time, Eddie would not allow the lyrics to be published.

[Scott Free]

Yeah, and you know it is. You can see how this is really personal. Relationships between sons and fathers can be complicated, but with a completely absent, unknown father you only find out about after he's gone. This. This quatrain really struck me. Oh, dear dad, can you see me now? I am myself like you Somehow I'll wait up in the dark for you to speak to me like just. Damn. That is a heartbroken man who never knew his dad, but still wants to.

[Lori]

And he wants to be released from the pain, Right? Yeah.

[Scott Free]

Damn.

[Lori]

Yeah. All right, well, that's all I got on that one. Well, no, that's not entirely true, because then we have the hidden trap.

[Scott Free]

The hidden trap track.

[Lori]

Yes. So at the end of release, there is the hidden instrumental again, Master Slave.

[Scott Free]

The hidden track that we talked about before, the first track on the album once, that hidden track that apparently if you put your CD player on repeat and you play it all the way through, it loops back to the beginning and just forms a relatively seamless single track that bookends the album.

[Lori]

All right, so, Scott, that brings us to the end of the album.

[Scott Free]

Yep.

[Lori]

And you know what? I'm gonna ask you what's your favorite track?

[Scott Free]

And I think, you know, it's not just that it's the one we heard most recently. No, I'm. I'm going with track 10 deep. Okay. It was a big song. You could hear it on the radio, but it wasn't one that got played absolutely to death so that you never need to hear it again. And it is a mid tempo rocker, but that still has that driving energy. That is what makes this band great in my book. So for me, it's deep. And for you, Laurie, I'm in a.

[Lori]

Similar kind of bind. It's like I have heard so many of these songs over and over and over that it's like if I have to hear Jeremy one more time, I think I'm probably going to scream. So I'm going to go with Black. Yes. Lyrically, I really like that song. Song. There's. There's something very relatable going on with. With the lyrics.

[Scott Free]

Bittersweet.

[Lori]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Scott Free]

The heartbreak that only comes with young love.

[Lori]

Yeah. All the pictures had all been washed in black Tattooed everything. I like that line.

[Scott Free]

Yeah. Right on. So whatever became of these young lads from Seattle and to a lesser extent, San Diego, and they. Did they go on to do anything good? Oh, right. They just became one of the biggest selling rock bands of all time.

[Lori]

As we mentioned, the drummer Krewson left Pearl Jam in May 1991.

[Scott Free]

Yeah. Did not even make it onto the tour with them to support this one.

[Lori]

Right. Because he checked himself into rehab for alcohol abuse.

[Scott Free]

Yeah.

[Lori]

The band would go on to release some other really big albums. Verses. And then what was the one after that also began with a V Itology. Yes, that's it. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

[Scott Free]

Yeah. I mean, I think it's interesting to put this, like, whether you believe that 10 is a true grunge album. Or not. And really, what does that even mean? But when you think of 1991 and the rise of the grunge scene, you're mainly talking about four bands that were the pioneers and then a bunch of others that maybe came earlier but didn't reach those same levels of success or maybe sort of copied and rode that bandwagon. But you're talking about Soundgarden, Nirvana, Alice in Chains, and Pearl Jam. If you look at those four bands, Nirvana, Kurt Cobain obviously dies at age 27 in 1994. Alison Chains, Lane Staley dead at 34 from a speedball overdose. So I want to say that was the late 90s, early 2000s, somewhere in there. Soundgarden much more recently. But Chris Cornell, lead singer of Soundgarden, dies in 2017 at age 52 of a suicide in Detroit. And so of those four bands that were the pioneers of grunge, Pearl Jam was it. They are the ones who survived and thrived. They kept releasing albums, they've toured relentlessly. I mean, they are such a big band that they have their own SiriusXM channel. Not a lot of bands can say that, although, you know, the company that they keep is YouTube, the Dave Matthews Band, Pitbull and Jimmy Buffett. So I'm not saying it's necessarily and by it's something to aspire to if you're a band, you want to be that big, but whatever. All I'm saying is they're absolutely massive. They have legions of devoted fans. They're one of the biggest, best selling rock bands ever. So. Okay, you know, I guess they did okay.

[Lori]

All right, well, we haven't figured out what we're doing for the next episode yet, have we?

[Scott Free]

I think we haven't. There are a few still influential albums, if maybe not the biggest albums of 1991, that we might want to consider getting into. But we'll keep that as a surprise for you, dear listeners, and you'll know what we chose next episode.

[Lori]

Yeah, until then, it'll be a surprise.

[Scott Free]

Right on.

[Lori]

Yes.

[Scott Free]

Who doesn't like a surprise?

[Lori]

Oh, I don't really like surprises.

[Scott Free]

Yeah, me neither. I have a long standing rule. Do not give me a surprise party.

[Lori]

Oh, see, I thought I. I thought I was the only one that had that rule.

[Scott Free]

No, I will leave.

[Lori]

Yeah, yeah, all right, that's good to know. Okay. Anyway, on that note, it's a goodbye.

[Scott Free]

From me Lori, and from me scott free.

[Lori]

Thanks for listening.