60 Songs That Explain the '90s - “Yellow Ledbetter”—Pearl Jam

Episode Date: December 7, 2022

Rob looks back at some of the first CDs he ever owned when diving into Pearl Jam’s lyrically incomprehensible B-side hit “Yellow Ledbetter.” Host: Rob Harvilla Guest: Steven Hyden Producer: Justin Sayles Associate Producer: Jonathan Kermah Additional Productional Support: Kai Grady Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Learn more about the albums you love with Dissect, a music analysis podcast hosted by me, Cole Kushna, a lifelong musician and composer. Each season of Dissects dives deep into a single album, forensically dissecting the music, lyrics, and meaning of one song per episode. Our newest season is covering Tyler the creator's Igor, a beautifully honest album in which Tyler explores love, communication, masculinity, and truth. Listen to Dissect today only on Spotify, because great art deserves more than a swipe. First CD I ever owned. Pocketful of Cryptonite by the Spin Doctors. I got plenty of teenage regrets, but that ain't one of them. No, I did not buy the 1991 debut album from Jam Band adjacent New York City Rockers,

The Spin Doctors, because I wanted to hear the song, What Time Is It? I was not familiar with this song. Track two, when I bought this CD. But throughout high school, if somebody asked, asked you what time is it. You were morally obligated to respond, 4.30, and then maybe get slapped in the face. And then every day, every afternoon, when it was actually 4.30 for just that 60 seconds, you would maybe look around for someone who just looked like they didn't know what time it was. And then you'd go kind of casually stand near them, just for the 0.2% chance they'd be like, what time is it? Just so you could

go 430 and mean it, but then still maybe get slapped in the face. Did I say throughout high school, you want the truth? If somebody asked me, what time is it? In those exact words, today, I would probably respond, 430. I would do that today to one of my children. I can't help it. It was my first CD. What time is it?

It's time to collect CDs. It's time to assemble my teenage identity. That's what time it is. No, I bought pocketful of kryptonite because I wanted to hear the jovial spin doctors hit Little Miss Can't Be Wrong. That's the best line in Little Miss Can't Be Wrong. Crack me up every time I heard it on the radio. I hope we heard this song and it pissed you off. But na na na na na na na na na top 20 pop hit. Alternative rock is the next big thing. The spin doctors maybe are the next big thing. I always pictured lanky and white funky

spin doctor's frontman Chris Barron as shaggy, both the Scooby-Doo character and the adjective. White Funky is not a pejorative, by the way. Chris liked to do a little scatting, even on his biggest hit song. Some quite endearing scatting if you want the truth. Zoinks! No, I bought Pocketful of Cryptonite because I wanted to hear the top 10 pop hit two princes. Also, I bought this CD for 17 bucks or whatever for two songs. I'm 13, 14 years old. First CD I ever owned. 17 bucks is like 30% of my net worth. I can still clearly picture my first CD player. I can practically manifest it. One of them combo stereo jams, single front-loading CD player up top, radio in the middle, dual cassette deck on the bottom. I lovingly installed this stereo on an overturned

milk crate. I can still feel the weight of this combo stereo beneath the outstretched palm of my hand. And I would do that. Just rest my hand on the top of my stereo, like you as like a holy, as a supplicant gesture, as though I were blessing it, as though it were blessing me, a sacred object to me, this stereo. Very arguably the single most sacred object I have ever owned. Okay, number two after my wedding ring. When you put a CD in the little tray and it loaded back in, there'd be that quick little squiggly sound of it reading the CD, the laser or whatever.

I can still hear that little squiggly sound. And then the digital readout with a number of tracks in the total time. Pocketful of kryptonite. 10 tracks, 50 minutes, 30 seconds. A very pleasing series of numbers. First CD player, first CD costs 17 bucks or whatever. And you load it up and you revel in the little digital. digital laser squiggly sound and you hit play and you pray that there are more than two good songs on this fucking thing so as to justify your investment.

And God bless the spin doctors. Truly. Because there are arguably five good songs on Pocketful of Cryptonite. Little Miss Can't be Wrong. Two princes. Jimmy Olson's Blues. That's track one. What time is it?

And also this guy. How could you want him parentheses when you know you could have me? A couple years later, I put this song on a cassette mixtape for a young lady I was sweet on. A mixtape constructed on this very stereo, a young lady who already had a boyfriend. Jesus. Quite a literal song choice, I must say. I've mentioned that before. Do I keep mentioning the time I put, how could you want him when you know you could have me on a mixtape for a girl?

because that's one of my teenage regrets, or do I secretly not regret it at all? Half the songs on a pocketful of kryptonite are good. That's pretty good. Way more prestigious records by way cooler artists have way worse good song percentages, according to 13-year-old me. It's all I'm going to say, early Soundgarden. But here's what happens.

Here's what makes the CD the vastly superior album format. you can return to the good songs immediately. The good song ends. The next track, very often a not good song, begins. And in just a few seconds, you can reach out and go boop and go back one track, and the good song starts playing again. Miraculous technology. Whereas with a cassette tape, right?

You got to hit rewind. And rewinding, of course, is catastrophically imprecise. So now it's rewinding. You got to hit play at random and see where you are in the tape now. And then futz around looking for the exact starting point of the good song again. Are you midway through the good song? Are you midway through the very often other not good song before the good song? And there's a science and art to that.

And if you master the dark art of rewinding, you get to the point where it's ingrained in you. That when the good song ends, you hit rewind a few seconds into the not good song. It takes 2.85 seconds to rewind back to the beginning of the good song. And when you time it right and you're rewinding and you hit play and the good song begins again at that precise moment, that feeling is crazy satisfying. It's like when you pump gas, you stop right at $20 or whatever. But here's what else happens. You're still listening to the first few seconds of the not good song while you reach for the CD player to put the good song on again. Consequently, you develop a Pavlovian response to the first three seconds of the not good song.

So pocketful of kryptonite by the spin doctors, right? Track three is Little Miss can't be wrong, whereas track four is not. Track four is called 40 or 50. That's the first three seconds. That's all I know. I know those first three seconds intimately. But that's it. I know these three seconds intimately as the music that's playing, the soundtrack.

as I reach forward to go boop, on my new CD player and turn it back to Little Miss can't be wrong. Two boops. You got to hit the back button twice, right? The first boop to go back

to the beginning of the not good song that just started. The second boop to go back another track to the previous and desired good song. 40 or 50 is a not good song. That's not the same thing as a bad song.

Necessarily. Could be fine. Could be almost good. Even you want to find out. You listen to it. I'm listening to Little Miss Can't Be Wrong. Why do you think I wanted a CD player?

Track 7 on Pocket Full of Cryptonite is two princes, whereas track 8 is not. Track 8 is called Off My Line. That's the first three seconds. Ooh, Harmonica. Is that John Popper from Blues Traveler on Harmonica? You look it up. Boop, boop. I'm already listening to Two Princes again.

CD players are awesome. Second CD I ever owned. Bloodletting by Goth adjacent Los Angeles. Rockers, Concrete Blonde, came out in 1990. I bought bloodletting because I knew it had at least two good songs. Track three is called Caroline. One thing you should know about me is I will start crying instantly at any halfway effective pop song that uses the word goodbye. And I wave goodbye just kills me there. I got my wisdom teeth removed right when I bought this CD for $17 and I had like dry sockets or something, it hurt for longer than I'd anticipated.

I had an unpleasant and protracted recovery from getting my wisdom teeth remove. So I'm just lying there on my bed, moaning impotently and listening to bloodletting by Concrete Blonde. This is as got as I ever got. And I have held it against this album ever since. Whenever I hear Concrete Blonde now, I get like a phantom toothache. I saw Concrete Blonde live in New York City in 2010 for the 20th anniversary. this album and I just stood there greatly enjoying myself and rubbing my aching jaw the whole time phantom toothache music how metal is that exactly bloodletting by concrete blonde second cd i ever own

track three is caroline whereas track four is not track four is called darkening of the light i just played you the whole song as far as i'm concerned a fantastic soundtrack to reaching out and going Boop Boop to put on Caroline again. As for the other good song I bought this record for? Yes. Of course. Joey. Phenomenal song.

Phenomenal deployment of vowels. Joey, a top 20 pop hit. Alternative rock is the next big thing. Track 9 is Joey, whereas track 10 is not. Track 10 is called Tomorrow Wendy. That's the first three seconds, which make a fantastic soundtrack to, but wait. Wait. Don't touch it. No boops.

Zero boops. Here's the moment we live for. Here's the dream we all dream of. Here's why you buy a CD player. Here's why you devote your teenage years to collecting CDs because it turns out that Tomorrow Wendy by Concrete Blonde is a good song. Phenomenal. Phenomenal song. Phenomenal guitar tone.

I'm not afraid to say it. Tomorrow Wendy has a super heavy backstory that I am not privy to and furthermore don't have the emotional bandwidth to process as a dorcas sheltered 13-year-old. It was written by Andy Preboy of that rad 80s new wave band Wall of Voodoo. It's about a friend of his who'd been diagnosed with AIDS. I'm going to leave it at that and I'm going to try not to be too hard on oblivious dorcas 13-year-old me as all of that context flies over my head as I lie there on my bed, clenching my jaw and going phenomenal guitar tone. Truly great songs will wait for years,

even decades, for you to wrap your head around them. Truly great songs are patient that way. And tomorrow, Wendy, and Bloodletting and Concrete Blonde were there for me from the very beginning. Bloodletting, if you're keeping score, has only the three good songs. But three good songs out of ten is a pretty good good song percentage as well. You know who else bet at 300 in 1990? Ken Griffey, junior much respect to concrete blonde the third cd i ever owned in my 13 year old opinion and also my current opinion has only three not good songs when you hear those drums that's your cue to reach out and go boop boop and get back to one of this cd's unprecedented eight good songs third cd i ever owned ten the debut album from a zeitgeist adjacent Seattle Rockers Pearl Jam. Is it corny to say to you now that the first

time I heard the opening guitar riff to a live is the exact moment that I became a teenager? I will answer that question with a question. Do you have any idea how corny I was as a teenager? Pearl Jam, from this chorus forward, become one of my top five, top three, top two favorite bands on earth and they remained at least a top five band for me until i turned 25 30 40 are pearl jam still a top five band for me i don't think so but it doesn't sound right definitively saying that they're not a pearl jam were gods to me man i bought their first album for 17 dollars my third cd ever and my investment yielded an unprecedented eight good songs out of 11 seven seven 73% a truly legendary good songs percentage.

You know who made 73% of his free throws over the course of his excellent 13-year NBA career? Mookie Blaylock, Pearl Jam are the best. Oceans of respect to Pearl Jam. Let's pay respect to Pearl Jam by paying the three not good songs on their first album, a little more respect. Track three on the first Pearl Jam album is alive,

whereas Track 4 is not. Track four is called Why Go. The best part of this not good song is iconic, growly voice of a generation Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder's very good delivery of the line. She's been diagnosed by some stupid fuck. Why Go is a pretty good, not good song on the not good song spectrum? No, let's not overcomplicate this. Track six on the first Pearl Jam album is Jeremy, whereas track seven is not. Track 7 is called Oceans and then you go boop, boop and put on Jeremy again.

Eddie Vedder is a big surfer, bro, right? Oceans is only a good song if you're big into surfing or if point break is your favorite movie. The best part of this not good song is Eddie Vedder's line delivery of whatever this line is. I'm like 73% sure of what he's saying there, but the uncertainty is the point with Eddie Vedder. I think he's a mumbler, a beguiling mumbler. A Voice of a Generation Mumbler. Track 8 on the first Pearl Jam record is Porch, whereas track 9 is not. Track 9 is called Garden, and then you go boop, poop, and put on porch again.

I did think it was so cool, the track list of this record, how most of the songs, 82% had one-word titles. Ocean Alive Black, Jeremy, Ocean's Porch, Garden, Deep Release. It was all terribly profound to me. Give me a break. I owned three CDs at this point. I overfixated. Overfixating was my teenage passion then,

and it's my adult job now. As far as the not-good song, Garden goes, I'm only 82% sure what Eddie's singing here, but his line delivery is pretty good. I'm way less than 82% sure what he's singing there. Actually, world-class mumbler, Eddie Vedder. Pearl Jam were one of my favorite bands in high school, and I'd proudly tell you that even if you didn't ask.

Pearl Jam were one of my favorite bands. my favorite bands in college, but I probably wouldn't have told you that even if you did ask. I was worried they weren't cool enough. They weren't as cool as built a spill or whatever. Pearl Jam are one of my favorite bands now, and I got no problem admitting it, even if it doesn't come up very often. I should clarify that the good songs versus not good songs debate is ongoing. It's a hypothetically fluid state, a not good song, according to me, and say 1991 can morph over time or better yet quite suddenly into a good song in say 2022 i'll give you a quick example the second pearl jam record versus from 1993 is 12 tracks long and historically has had nine good songs and three

not good songs 75 percent that's somehow an even better good songs percentage you know who won more than 75 percent of their regular season games in the 1993 1994 NBA season the seattle supersonic You know who was on the Sonics roster that year? Not Mookie Blaylock. You can't win them all. Deadly Fshrept, though. But wait, like 48 hours ago, I decided that one of the three not good songs on Verses

was actually a good song just for this part of the song. Let the record show that previously, track three on the Pearl Jam album Verses was daughter, whereas track four was not. And then you go, boop-boop and put it back on daughter. But no, no, no more boops. Based solely on any vetter's delivery of the line,

always keep it loaded. I'm like 95% sure. That's what he's singing. Glorify G by Pearl Jam is hereby reclassified as a good song. Ten of the 12 songs on verses are now good songs. 83% ridiculous good song percentage. That is a 90s Chicago Bowl. win-loss percentage.

This band is the best. They've been the best the whole time, whether I can see that to you or not. And Pearl Jam are the best because the best of Pearl Jam is mutable, is debatable, is debatable, is fluctuating with the cosmic passing of time or one's own, otherwise vastly

unpleasant personal aging process. Not good songs from your teenage years become good songs amid the groaning vicissitudes of adulthood. Furthermore, more. Good songs from your teenage years. You liked them. You respected them. You enjoyed them whenever they came on the radio. You conceded their status as good songs, even if you never actively sought them out. Slowly, one or two of those good songs might become world historically transcendent

good songs. The longer you are improbably still alive to further appreciate them. Jeremy, of course, It's very much one of the good songs on the first Pearl Jam record, 10. This is 1991. This is the age of the CD single. Jeremy was a very popular CD single. The black and white cover photograph with a little girl with a crayons and the gun, quaint a poignant and subversive image. Three tracks on the Jeremy's CD single. Jeremy is track one, of course.

It's not just that track three is also a good song. It's that it apparently takes the groaning fullness of 30 years to fully grasp the fact that track three is an even better good song. My name is Rob Barvilla. This is the 81st episode of 60 songs that explain the 90s, and this week we are talking about yellow ledbetter by Pearl Jam, technically released on the Jeremy single in 1992. Do not boop-boop this song under any circumstances.

I got to say for the longest time I didn't think I'd get around to Pearl Jam at all, on this show. I saw no pressing need for a standalone Pearl Jam episode. Does anybody at the ringer even like Pearl Jam? Like six years ago or something, we talked about Hunger Strike,

right? From Temple of the Dog, the Pearl Jam, Sound Garden Super Group. Phenomenal song, Hunger Strike. Karaoke classic. I have mentioned karaoke on this show more times

than I've actually done karaoke, by the way. That recently occurred to me. I just glanced at the track list to the full Temple of the Dog record from 1990, at least four. good songs on there, probably only four good songs, but four good songs out of ten, that's

fantastic. Even Wade Boggs never quite bad at 400. For the longest time, I figured that the Hunger Strike episode would suffice Pearl Jam wise, but I was mistaken. That will not suffice. Yellow Ledbetter beckons. The history, the backstory of Pearl Jam, and by extension, the backstory of late 80s and early 90s, Seattle, the coolest rock scene on planet Earth at that or any other time, the mythic and teenage identity defining musical genre and lifestyle brand, known grudgingly as grunge. This backstory is well documented.

Let's say books, movies, podcasts. Let's not get too bogged down. I hope that's okay. If you are hankering to get bogged down in the broader Pearl Jam or the Seattle of it all. Let me enthusiastically recommend two books to you. Our friend Stephen Hayden who will be talking to shortly. Stephen in 2022 published a book called Long Road Pearl Jam and the soundtrack of a generation. Excellent book. I dug the chapter that ties Eddie Vedder's arc into the most recent A Star is Born, the Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga version of the Star is born. Eddie is both

Ali and Jackson, Maine. That was great. My second recommendation is a book called Everybody Loves Our Town, an oral history of grunge by the author and critic Mark Yarm, that's Mark YARM Yarm, published in 2011, super informative and also Grody is All Hell, this book. My favorite anecdote from Everybody Loves Our Town is when the bass player in a Seattle band called Catbutt takes a dump on the hood of a white coat. The band's Mud Honey and Cat Butt are on tour and they're hanging out in an apartment complex or some kind of condo situation in Davis, California.

And Cat Butts bassist, a guy named Dean Gunderson is inexplicably enraged by the mere presence of a white Camaro in the parking lot. He says, that was another LSD night. The car offended me. I don't know. End quote. So he takes a crap on the car. Dean is like six foot seven. And then Dean says, the guy actually came out and we watched him try to get it off. He backed the car up and slammed on the brakes so it would roll off the hood. But it ended up rolling back towards the windshield wipers. It got stuck in there and he drove off. End quote. Wow. This is a cat butt song called Big Cigar. Sometimes a big cigar is just a big cigar. Tell me this song doesn't say. sound like a white Camaro furiously backing up and then pulling forward in a futile effort

to dislodge a giant bassist turd on the hood. So that's grunge, okay? Okay, all right, that's uncouth. All right, fine, let's try again. So there's this band Green River. Forms in the mid-80s puts out a couple EPs in one album called Rehab Doll in 1988, relatively unknown, at least at the time, outside Seattle, and only briefly successful even within Seattle. Cool band, but this is a very low good songs percentage situation.

These dudes wish they were putting up spin doctors numbers. Here's Green River, though, with a legit good song called Swallow My Pride. This song, as you might be aware, quotes liberally from the mid-70s Blue Oyster cult song, This Ain't the Summer of Love. Uh, who's blue oyster cult? Ask your dad. Uh, classic rock gods from Long Island. I got to have more cowbell, etc. One of the first 10 or 20 CDs I owned was a blue oyster cult greatest hit CD, which I bought, of course, for don't fear the Reaper or Godzilla burning for you and so forth. Greatest hits albums are cheating. They're like an all star game, I guess. But yeah, just a bonkers

good song percentage on that shit. Green River here, now echoing blue oyster cult. This is a very simple, but also somehow quite complex declaration of who Green River think they are and who they know they're not. So Green River in 1987 play a show in L.A. opening for Jane's Addiction. The two big Jane's Addiction albums haven't come out yet. They've been caught stealing video, Lallapalooza, Alternative Rock. None of that shit exists. Yeah, this is 87. But the dudes in Green River are standing just offstage watching a pre-national.

fame jane's addiction kick ass in front of like two thousand hometown fans jane's addiction are blowing through i don't know let's say mountain song and some of the guys in green river are thinking oh my god this is the greatest band in the history of the world and meanwhile some of the other guys in green river are thinking oh my god this is the worst shit i've ever heard in my life and then the dudes in green river all look at each other and break up and the dudes in green river who thought jane's addiction sucked, including lead singer Mark Arm, that's A-R-M, no relation to the author, Mark Y-A-R-M, that's an incredible coincidence, though. Mark Arm and his Jane's Addiction Hating Buddies start the band Mudhoney, the lovely and pugnacious

and supremely excellent and cat-but-friendly band Mudhoney. In 1988 88, Mudhoney put out an epic-defining debut single called Touch Me, I'm Sick. In 1991, Mudhoney put out their second album, Every Good Boy deserves Fudge. And I do believe I borrowed that CD from my dear friend Gene in high school, and I was delighted to discover that for a notoriously rowdy and confrontational band, Mudhoney somehow managed a spin doctor's caliber good song percentage. That song's called Let It Slide. And meanwhile, the dudes in Green River who thought Jane's addiction kicked ass, namely basses, Jeff Ament and guitarists Stone Gossard and Bruce Fairweather,

they form a new band called Mother Love Bone, who I will describe, glibly, but not inaccurately, as the Jane's Addiction, if not the Guns and Roses of Seattle. These fellas are led by singer-songwriter, guitarist, an ultra-flamboyant rock star Andrew Wood, the band name Mother Love Bone,

being one good example of Andrew's flamboyance. And these fellas have one bonkers, outrageous good song that goes, a long way toward forgiving their quietly woeful overall good song percentage. This is a quality not quantity situation. Chloe Dancer Crown of Thorns is LeBron James. The rest of Mother Lovebone's songs are the rest of the Circa 2004 Cleveland Cavaliers. Unbelievable song. The November reign of Seattle. I don't care if that's glib. I finally learned to play the opening riff to Chloe dancer on piano. Did I tell you that? It's very important that I tell

you that if I haven't told you that yet. That's the actual song. That's not me. If you were ever wondering if this show has like a solipsism threshold or an indulgence threshold, we have arrived at it. I will not play you clips of me playing piano. That would be indulgent. In March 1990, shortly before the release of Mother Love Bones, much anticipated debut album, Apple, Andrew Wood dies of a heroin.

overdose. The chapter and everybody loves our town about Andrew Wood's death and the immediate grieving aftermath is quite moving and all the more moving given all the lewd Camaro befouling debauchery of all the chapters surrounding it. A collection of Andrew's friends and or former bandmates, including Jeff Amends, Stone Gossard, the guitarist Mike McCready and Soundgarden frontman Chris Cornell. They form a one-off Andrew Wood tribute supergroup called Temple of the Dog. And this dude, sneaks briefly into the mix as well. Eddie Vedder. Born in Evanston, Illinois, now living in San Diego.

Eddie's a soulful surfer bro. Eddie's processing some family trauma. Eddie dropped out of high school. Eddie's got carefully guarded rock star aspirations that embarrass him. Eddie loves the Who? Eddie loves the clash. in a sneaky way that's quite a broad ideological spectrum, rock star-wise, loving both the Who and The Clash.

The Who harbored a great deal of integrity, despite their quite famous rockstar grandiosity. The Clash exuded a great deal of rock star grandiosity, despite their quite famous integrity. Eddie, when he jumps on the immortal Temple of the Dog Song, Hunger Strike, has only very recently hooked up with Stone Gossard and Mike McCready and Jeff Ament. Temple of the Dog is a one album affair. Chris Cornell goes back to Soundgarden, etc. Hunger Strike takes a year or two to blow up on MTV. But now, Eddie and Stone and Mike and Jeff and drummer Dave Cruzen,

the first drummer out of five totals, too many drummers. Don't worry about it. These five guys form a new band, briefly called Muky Blaylock and permanently called Pearl Jam. But let's not get bogged down in the backstory. All right? So I'm 13. I'm clueless.

I don't know shit about anything. And certainly I don't know shit about pretty much any of the bands I just mentioned. I basically only know what MTV tells me I need to know. And now MTV is telling me I need to know this guy. How many thousands of times have I heard this second verse of Jeremy? How many versions? How many iterations of these lines have I heard? heard. How many iterations of just the word

fuck have I heard? Radio edit. The word fuck just elegantly imploded. So you know, I'm a little tasteful. Respectful. 1992 MTV Video Music Awards.

A venomous such contempt, contemptuously restraining himself. Yes, rock bands used to perform live at the MTV Video Music Awards. live at the 1992 Pink Pop Festival in the Netherlands. Clearly I remember picking on the boy seemed a harmless little fuck.

Outstanding. I don't mean to undermine Eddie's intensity or integrity here, but Eddie Vedder on stage at the 1992 Pink Pop Festival in the Netherlands has the most gorgeous, flowing, mesmerizingly voluminous hair of any American male I've ever laid eyes on. Just majestic. With repetition here, the pathos of clearly I remember picking on the boy is sinking in for me. Alternative Rock hypothetically represented the righteous revenge of the bullied over the bullies, but it didn't work out that way. Think

Kurt Cobain lamenting that so much of Nirvana's audience turned out to be the sorts of dipshit jocks who'd beat him up in high school. Eddie's working through some stuff on Jeremy. Eddie, Vetter is never not working through some stuff. The stuff he's never not working through is palpable in every word he sings. The word unleashed, for example. The visceral groatiness of that image gnashed his teeth and bit the recess ladies breast. How could you forget? Think about how surprised he sounds and how surprised you are by his surprise.

even if it's the 20,000th time you're hearing him sing about getting hit with the surprise left. The way he seems to blurt out, ooh, dropped wide open, half mumbling, half thundering. And even now, I can still picture Eddie Vedder in the Jeremy video

with a somber vibe, but pretty majestic hair with his head and his hands as he sings about the day he heard. Just like the day. It's junior high. It's after school. I'm at my buddy Gary's house. Gary's got a TV in his bedroom because he's the coolest. He's going to play Sega Genesis. I'm going to watch him play Sonic the Hedgehog or whatever. He's got MTV on. Jeremy video comes on. I'm like, wait, wait. And Gary's like, oh, Pearl Jam. What's this? He's unfamiliar. And thus he's instantly dismissive and sarcastic, right? It's junior high. And I'm the coolest kid in America at that moment because I get to introduce Gary to Pearl Jam. That's the best. best part of the song, right? The best part of the song is even better, the wilder Eddie Vedder sounds there, right? 1992 MTV Video Music Awards again. Nailed it. Both Stephen Hayden's Pearl Jam book and Mark Yarm's grunge oral history book talk about the Jeremy video. Mark Pellington's quite famous and prestigious

and VMA winning and super grim video for Jeremy. Quite a heavy backstory, quite a heavy story. forgive me, but the original Jeremy video ends with a troubled and bullied kid in front of the classroom, putting the gun in his mouth, and his classmates are frozen in horror with blood all over them. But MTV, in a botched bit of censorship, makes Pearl Jam take out just the quick glimpse of the kid putting the gun in his mouth, because that's too disturbing. But without that specific image, millions of impressionable teenagers now assume that Jeremy's classmates are covered in blood because he shot them. A song, a video about teenage suicide can now accidentally be interpreted as being about a school shooting. Mark Pellington is still pissed about this, and I get it.

All of that just to give you some idea of the clumsiness of MTV, of the censors, of the gatekeepers in this era. In a totally unrelated development, Pearl Jam don't make another video for seven years. In the meantime, I am 13 years old. I own three CDs, and I am hanging on Eddie Vedder's every word, the word why, for example. Black probably would have been the next Pearl Jam video, right? Never happened. That's too bad. The black video would have kicked ass, even if, like, Pee Wee Herman directed it. I'm hanging on Eddie Vedders every thunderous mumble. The radio edit of Evenflow is the superior version of Evenflow. Evenflow for two reasons, those two reasons being the very beginning and the very end.

So we're talking Eddie Vedder's wah at the very beginning. And then Eddie Vedder mumbling about dying at the very end. That's the best version of evenflow, except no substitutes. Can I tell you my dadist dad joke? My Apex Mountain dad joke? There's a company called Evenflow. One word with no W, E-V-E-E-N-F-L-O. They make strollers and car seats and baby gates.

We have an even-flow baby gate in our house, and the box is still leaning against the wall in our spare bedroom. And every time I walk by the Evenflow Baby Gate box, I go, Evenflow, don't let your babies fall down the stairs, yeah, and nobody ever laughs. Nobody. The Evenflow BabyGate should include a little built-in speaker that blares the chorus to Evenflow.

Every time it successfully restrains a baby, nobody thinks it's funny. Nobody. That's why it's my Apex Mountain Dad joke, because I am alone up there. What Eddie Vedder immediately communicates to me, as a clue is 13-year-old with three CDs who's hanging on his every word,

is how uncomfortable he is with the idea of millions of millions, of clueless 13-year-olds hanging on his every word. Pearl Jam's fame, in my teenage memory, is inextricable from Pearl Jam's intense discomfort with fame, or Eddie Vedder's discomfort with fame,

at least. He's suddenly as big as the Who, but he'd rather be the clash or something. Pearl Jam do not want what they have got. Pearl Jam, for the rest of the 90s, are synonymous for me with rock stars, self-loathing, Negation. They retreat. They recoil. They refuse. So somewhere in high school, some English teacher finally makes me read that Herman Melville's short story, Bartleby, the Scrivener from 1853 about the guy who doesn't want to scriven anymore.

So he just keeps saying, I would prefer not to. And it's all profound and literary. I hate to tell you this, but in high school, if a teacher had ever made you write like an essay about Bartleby, the scrivener, and you just turned in a single sheet of paper with I would prefer not to written on it, you would have automatically been named valedictorian, balloons and confetti dropping from the ceiling. You got to graduate high school immediately. It was like a cheat code. I'm sorry you had to find out like this. I didn't know either.

Pearl Jam, make another video. I would prefer not to. Pearl Jam. Do more interviews and be on more magazine covers. I would prefer not to. Pearl Jam. Stop complaining about Ticketmaster. I would prefer not to. Holy shit, were Pearl Jam right about Ticketmaster. Wow. Taylor Swift should cover alive. Pearl Jam, quit hanging out with Neil Young all the time. I would prefer not to.

Pearl Jam. Put your best songs on your own albums. I would fucking prefer not to. They also let you graduate high school early if you publicly declare that state. of love and trust was secretly the best pearl jam song. Very cool teenage opinion. State of love and trust, of course, appearing on the Seattle Zeitgeist defining and or co-opting 1991 Cameron Crow Romcom singles. Pretty good movie. Incredibly rad soundtrack.

Like 12 out of 13 songs on the singles soundtrack are good songs. I'll let you decide what the not good song is. If I really wanted to troll you, I'd tell you that the other Pearl Jam song, might be the only not good song. But even I won't stoop that low. This was my favorite Pearl Jam song in high school, which therefore makes that opinion the coolest possible teenage opinion. Pearl Jam's cover of the Victoria Williams song, Crazy Mary.

Victoria Williams originally from Louisiana, acclaimed singer, songwriter, playful, surrealist. When she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in the early 90s with no health insurance, she helped found a charity called Sweet Relief to help her, but also many other musicians who also didn't have health insurance. The CD compilation Sweet Relief, a benefit for Victoria Williams, featured Alt Rock Big Shots covering her songs, Soul Asylum, Buffalo, Tom,

Blue Reads on there, Lucinda Williams, etc. I suspect, though, that most clueless 13-year-olds bought this CD for Pearl Jam's cover of Crazy Mary. The softness, the stillness, the solemnity, the split seconds of near silence on this song. Amid all the clatter and bravado of 1993 alt-rock radio, where most other songs, usually these soft and quiet verses, were only there to make the hard and loud choruses seem harder and louder, Crazy Mary would shut me up. Crazy Mary would chill me out and lower my heart rate and quiet the noise in my head and force me to just listen.

And listen especially hard to the softness, to the near silences. My favorite pearl jam song in high school. Loved it whenever it came on the radio. Never bought the sweet relief record, though. Didn't have an extra $17 to throw around. I didn't have the eight bucks or whatever to buy the Jeremy single either. Don't even think about reaching me. I won't be home.

Footsteps. Track two on the Jeremy single. All three songs on the Jeremy single are good songs. 100%. Even with only three songs total, that's impressive. You got to get pretty deep into Pearl Jam origin story lore. to get the full effective footsteps. Stephen Hayden's book is great for that.

So early 1990, when Andrew Wood dies and Mother Lovebone implodes, Stone Gossard and Jeff Ahmed hook up with Mike McCready in retreat and process their grief and haltingly start working on new music for a hypothetical new band. But they need a new singer and they make a cassette tape of some instrumentals that makes its way from Seattle down to San Diego and finds its way to Eddie Vedder, soulful surfer bro, who listens to the tape and goes surfing and then works up what is reverently known as the Mama Son demo,

a three-song many opera about incest and murder. The three songs are alive, then once, then footsteps. Eddie records this demo in his own cassette tape. He dubs over an old Merle Haggard album. Mama Son is a reference to the clash song straight to hell. Alive and once both make the first Pearl Jam record, of course, though now once is track one and alive as track three with the Baby Gate song in between. Footsteps in which the Mama Sun character sings forlornly, but not very apologetically,

from Death Row doesn't make the record at all. And okay, this one was less common on the radio, but the stillness, the solemnity of Eddie Vetter at his softest, is arguably even more majestic than his hair. But I did hear footsteps on the radio occasionally. And for a recording so raw and intimate and unadorned, the version on the Jeremy single is a live recording from prestigious L.A. radio show called Rockline. It's remarkable that footsteps got any alt-rock radio play at all in, say, Cleveland. But this was an immediate established super weird thing about Pearl Jam. Arguably their best songs were B-sides or random compilation action.

Flash forward a few years and one of those compilation jam, even became their single most successful song. Do you know what Pearl Jam's highest charting song ever is? Sure you do. Last Kiss, a cover of a Wayne Cochran song from 1961. Pearl Jam's cover of this song is on a 1998 album called No Boundaries, A Benefit for the Kosovaar Refugees. In 1999, Pearl Jam's cover of Last Kiss was briefly the number two song in America.

Pearl Jam Sandwiched at number two On the Billboard Hot 100 Between If You Had My Love By Jennifer Lopez at number one And Living La Vita Loca By Ricky Martin At number three

Eddie Vedder Is canonically a crucial part of the late 90s Latin pop explosion It's weird, man Pearl Jam Seemingly from the very moment They got famous Right?

When the first clueless 13-year-old kid heard the alive riff for the first time, Pearl Jam seemed to be actively sabotaging or at least subverting their own fame. No videos for a long time after Jeremy. No garish pretz blitzes. Given their big ticket master fight, even Pearl Jam live shows were pretty wonky for a while there in the mid-90s.

All of which meant that some of Pearl Jam's biggest songs ever could have more of a random, organic, in spite of themselves, fan-driven feel. Your first reaction was always, why is this on the radio? It was weird, but it was cool. The whole approach just radiated integrity. Even if parts of Eddie Vedder's anti-fame approach seemed incomprehensible,

even if Eddie Vedder's lyrics were totally incomprehensible. I don't know, man. I got no problem. I don't mind telling you. I don't know. No idea what he's saying. Well, not no idea. Maybe it's unsealed on a porch, a letter sat.

And Eddie just happens to pronounce the word unsealed like it's on the ceiling because it sounds cooler to him. Maybe, I don't know. Embrace the mystery is my advice. Embrace the sage gibberish of yellow lead better. First time you heard this song on alt rock radio in the early 90s, your quite natural reaction was, brr-genius, formerly rap genius, the prominent lyrics website I would entrust with my life. I'm just kidding. Genius swears to me that Eddie is singing, I don't know whether I'm the boxer or the bag there. I have always heard that line is I don't want to come home in a box or a bag. Neither is correct. Neither interpretation. Neither transcription is 100% correct or even like 60% correct. Yellow Ledbetter is supposed to sound like Pearl Jam recorded it five minutes, before they wrote it.

Not five minutes after they wrote it before. They're not jamming. They're not writing it as they're playing it. They haven't written it yet. In 2003, when Pearl Jam puts out a suspiciously excellent two-disc B-Sides collection called Lost Dogs, Mike McCready in the liner notes for Yellow Ledbetter, he just says,

a riff loosely based on dot, dot, dot, dot, something I had during the 10 sessions. I thought it was pretty. Eddie started making up words on the spot, And we kept them. I still don't know what it's about. And I don't want to, exclamation point. I love it.

Fans like it too, exclamation point, end quote. All right. Clearly, and this is the only clear thing about Yellow Ledbetter. Clearly, Mike McCready's guitar riff here is loosely based on dot, dot, dot, dot, little wing by Jimmy Hendrix from Axis, Bold as Love in 1967. Steal from the best. Loosely base your riff. on the best. That's me actually playing guitar.

No, it's not. It's Jimmy Hendricks. In his Pearl Jam book, Stephen Hayden hypothesizes that Pearl Jam didn't put Yellow Ledbetter on 10 on their first album because the song sounded

a little too much like Little Wing. But Yellow Ledbetter wouldn't have worked at all on 10 or on any Pearl Jam album. It's too chill. It's too loose. It's too comfortable. In Stephen Hayden's book,

he quotes, Mike McCready saying that the band played Evenflow 30 times in the studio before they got a good take. And they played Yellow Ledbetter twice. And it sounds like it. Yellow Ledbetter sounds like they only played it twice. Like they played it zero times.

Like they played it negative two times. As Pearl Jam evolved, post-ticketmaster debacle, into one of the most prolific and fearsome and bootlegged live rock bands of their generation or any other generation, yellow lead better would emerge as the perfect encore at a Pearl Jam concert. Last song of the night, the dramatic but serene conclusion, the light of the disco ball, reflecting off all the half-deflated balloons that have drifted down to the dusty gymnasium floor.

This song is the exhausted but thoroughly satisfied casual lope of 10,000 Pearl Jam fans all walking back to their cars. You ain't got to go home, but you can't stay here. Dig the woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo action during McCready solo here. Dude, I wonder if he did that on the first take. So apparently Eddie Vedder did once during a Pearl Jam concert explain what Yellow Ledbetter was about. His explanation is fairly succinct and logical and tragic and lovely. And most of all, it's understandable.

And I am torn here because at this point it is super obnoxious not to provide for you here, that explanation. But genuinely, I think it's more obnoxious if I do. Just now I wrote out a whole explanation, paraphrasing Haydn's book, paraphrasing Eddie's explanation, and then I erased all of it, and I returned to Yellow Ledbetter itself, specifically to the least understandable part of the song. I got nothing, man. I'm not trying to withhold crucial information, from you here. Eddie Vedder explains the song Yellow Ledbetter during a Pearl Jam show on August 7th, 2008 in Newark, New Jersey. Pearl Jam shows are well documented, both by Pearl Jam fans and by

Pearl Jam themselves. Put it that way. In the early 2000s, I once reviewed like 25 official full-length Pearl Jam concert bootlegs for a magazine, for alternative press magazine. The show was like two hours a piece. I had 150 words to review 20-something pearl jam bouleys. That's not a lot of words. I am speaking more than 150 words to you on this specific topic right now. And I listen to all 50-whatever hours of those CDs because I am a professional. So of course you can easily find audio from this new work show. You can find audio of Eddie's full yellow led better explanation, which comes during some sort of Q&A portion. This is apparently a fan yelling a question at Eddie Vedder. That applause goes on for 20 seconds. And I just stopped there. I did not listen to Eddie

explaining the song. Partly that's because Stephen Hayden thinks Eddie just made up the explanation on the spot. But mostly it's because that applause was all I really needed. The applause confirmed for me what a tremendously important song Yellow Ledbetter is. And a huge part of what makes yellow lead better so important is the gibberish, the mysteriousness, the bafflement. The sense of deep calm so absolute you accept the idea that the song isn't supposed to mean anything or consist of real English words. The applause there. That's the meaning. That's all the explanation yellow ledbetter needs. Phenomenal guitar tone. I'm still not afraid to say it. That's my favorite part of the song. The 60 to 90 seconds of rampant chillness at the end, the softness,

the stillness, the near silences. And I'm trying very hard here in a remarkably unchill way to convey to you what it felt like to hear this, to hear yellow lead better on the radio in 1992, 93, 94, amid all these other blaring alt-rock songs trying so hard to achieve the emotionally resonant and lasting profundity that yellow lead better achieves just by existing. The cliche, right, and it comes up on this show all the time, is that alternative rock is just classic rock now. For a 13-year-old dorcas now, Pearl Jam might as well be the who or the clash.

Pearl Jam are older now than the clash were when Pearl Jam were young. I'm sorry, that's tough. That's tough on everybody. But Yellow Ledbetter was classic rock the very first time, the very first 13-year-old Dorkas heard it on the radio for the very first time. And Yellow Ledbetter has waited patiently all these years for everyone to realize that it's classic rock. To grasp its true unknowable greatness, because that's what the greatest good songs do. Our guest today, we're delighted to welcome back Stephen Hayden. Critic, author, podcaster, Midwestern icon.

His latest book, of course, is Long Road Pearl Jam and the soundtrack of a generation. Stephen, welcome. Always a pleasure, Rob. Thank you for having me. Likewise, dude. I'm very curious how you see the 30-year arc of Yellow Ledbetterer, you know, among the biggest, the most devout, the most tenured Pearl Jam fans. Like, was this song an all-time highlight immediately, or has it been more of a slow burn that

kind of snuck up on everybody over a decade or two. Well, you know, as a song that is a traditional show closer, because this is one of the big encore songs for Pearl Jam. If you're going to a Pearl Jam show, you're going to hear this song or Bob O'Reilly or Rocking in the Free World at the end of the show. Or you might hear a couple of those, but you're going to probably get one of those. That didn't really happen until around the year 2000. That's when that starts to be codified.

as like a Pearl Jam tradition. Like before that, in the 90s, it was more of a rarity. If it was played, it might not be at the end of the show. It might be in the middle of the show. But by 2000, it becomes this big encore song. But just in terms of the song's popularity, you know, it gets released as a B-side in August of 92. It's the B-side to Jeremy.

And that song actually got played on the radio. Like, I remember hearing it. And it charted on the mainstream songs. rock chart. I think it peaked at number 21. And I think that just speaks to how big Pearl Jam was at that time that radio programmers demanded more Pearl Jam content. And here was a new song, beautiful guitar solo on it. It just fit perfectly. Fit the bill. In my book, I describe, you know, led better as the most famous B-side of the 90s. And I really think that's true. I agree. Because of the success that it had, that I think is pretty extraordinary for

a song that would be a B-side. Of course, we have to explain what a B-side is to the younger people. They don't even know what that is. Let's not. I'm not going to explain anything to these people anymore, Steve. Just figure it out for yourself. Google it, man. Type it in. But, you know, the 90s were kind of like the last great era of B-sides where bands were actually creating new songs as the flip side, knowing that people would be collecting these things and it would have, you know, currency among fans. Along with Pearl Jam, of course, you had like Oasis did that, smashing pumpkins, Weezer did that. A lot of the big major rock bands, you know, put a premium on it

because it was still an era where you could buy CD singles. And if you wanted to force fans to spend $9 for a song that they already had, put a couple B-sides on there, and it's going to entice them to do that. But the Yellow Lightbrador, I think, broke through in a way that even like the most famous smashing pumpkins or Oasis B-sides didn't necessarily break through. It's interesting you say that like as the set closer, we're either going to play the Who, Neil Young or this one song by us. Like does that basically say that this is Pearl Jam acknowledging that like this is the closest they got to like that peak?

You know, this is our classic rock arena rock closer. You know, do you think Pearl Jam hold this song in high esteem or? is this Pearl Jam realizing slowly that the fans hold it in high esteem and we're just going to give them what they want? Well, I think it is maybe the most classic rock Pearl Jam song, certainly of that era. There's something about it that slots pretty comfortably next to a song like Bob O'Reilly. It has that kind of classic structure of a song where you have the big bellowing vocal, you have this beautiful guitar solo, the emotion. the emotions are really big. It's clearly a Jimmy Hendricks homage,

if we even want to use the word homage. I have a theory that Yellow Ledbetter didn't make 10 because they were worried about a lawsuit from the Hendrix group. It sounds a lot like Little Wing. Sure does. There's even live versions where Mike McCready starts playing Little Wing, you know, during the guitar solo. So I think that's,

that has been acknowledged over time. But yeah, again, it just feels like a song that was designed to be played in an arena with lighters in the air. Right, right. You know, so I think it naturally slots in that sort of end of the night type spot. You know, it's rousing and it's also kind of mellow at the same time. I think the mellowness is why I loved it when I heard it on the radio. Like the last 90 seconds of the song are just so mellow and so chill and so quiet. You know, it's like Eddie moaning a little bit.

And then just this long, beautiful guitar outro, like just amid alt rock radio, right? Like all the chaos and all the soft verses and loud choruses. Like this song, for whatever it is, like six minutes, like makes you stop. You know, it just sort of quietes the noise in my head and like in the car or whatever. It was just very effective that it transplanted that last song of the night vibe. you know, it's a 2.30 in the afternoon, you know, on the radio. That's like a really cool magic trick to me. Yeah. And there's something about Y'all Ledbetter, too, where it is an abstract song, really, lyrically, because there, I don't think there are lyrics to that song. It's a song that, by all

counts, was, like, improvised in the studio where Eddie Vedder is doing this thing. And it's not just on Yellow Ledbetter. There's this other song on 10 called Relief. the last song on the record where he's doing this thing. It's like articulate mumbling, you know, where he's articulating a message in the song without using words. Like you understand that he's going through something emotional and heavy, but there's nothing attached to it. Now, there's this backstory on the song that it's supposedly about a guy,

he gets a letter from the government and he learns that his brother has been killed in a war. This is a story that Eddie Better told once. On stage, right. On stage. Which, to me, strikes me as an explanation after the fact. Yeah, you sort of say in the book, it's like a retroactive. Like, I got to tell him something, this is plausible. And it is plausible.

And it's lovely. But, like, you kind of don't buy it as coming before the song was written. Yeah. And when you listen to the song, I mean, if anyone can discern. what he is saying on the record. I want to hear, I want to see your transcription of the lyrics. Because again, I think anyone who claims

that he's saying anything specific is projecting their own meaning onto it, which is a great thing. But again, to claim that as a definitive interpretation of it, I think, would be a stretch. So does this prove that Eddie Vedder as a lyricist?

It's not that he's by any stretch a bad lyricist, but that as a frontman as a singer, the lyrics don't matter. Like, I'm trying to picture a printed volume of Eddie Vedder lyrics, right? Like, is that gratifying to page through, or is everything, as you say, like, he conveys, you know, these very deep, profound, legitimately sentiments, you know, through the melody, through the tone of his voice. It doesn't have anything to do with lyrics. Like, lyrics are sort of extraneous to him and to Pearl Jam, the vast majority of the time, let's

say. Well, I will say definitely, in the case of Yellow Ledbetter, it doesn't matter because, again, I don't think that there are lyrics to this song. And it doesn't matter to Pearl Jam in the sense that it doesn't really matter for any great song. Right. Any great song, it needs to communicate to the listener on a visceral level. If you have to read the lyrics like you're looking at a textbook, it's probably missing some sort of musical, emotional connection. with the listener. I will say that in my book,

one thing I make a case for is Eddie Vedder being an underrated lyricist? And the thing with him is that I think people look at him and they tend to classify him as like a confessional songwriter or someone who's, you know, venting his inner demons. And there's certainly an element to that in Pearl Jam songs, but I think an underrated aspect of what he does

is that he often is writing about characters. And women. And women, yes, exactly. I mean, Jeremy's the most obvious example, of a character-based song. But if you just go down the list of famous Pearl Jam songs from this era, whether we're talking about daughter, elderly woman behind the counter in a small town, you know, Better Man, you know, a song like Alive. He's not writing about himself. He's writing about characters and maybe he's basing things on his own life. But there is a storytelling aspect, I think, to a lot of Pearl Jam songs that has been

under-examined, I think. And that was something I tried to go into in the book. But yeah, in the case of a song like Yellow Ledbetter, it is, I think, just about how Eddie can express a feeling or situation without literally using words. It is

kind of a special talent that he did have at that time. Yeah. You write about seeing Pearl Jam for the first time in 1998 and feeling like you were saying goodbye. Like you personally weren't very into them anymore. And you kind of figured they might be done, right? Like Alt Rock is over, new metal is ascendant. You know, there's this sense I think you have when you go to that show that like I might not see them again or like they're never going to be this big again. And like obviously that's not what happened. And I how did Pearl Jam survive the 90s? I guess is the question. Like how did they turn that corner, you know, past 1998? You know, they never made it.

another album nearly as big as whatever, 10 versus vitology, but like they have thrived in a way that I don't think anyone expected them to in 1998. Like what happened? Well, just to give a little background on like my state of mind in 98 when I saw them for the first time, a lot of that was influenced by just where I was in my life that, you know, I started listening to Pearl Jam when I was 14 and now it's seven years later and I'm 21. And that just felt like a huge amount of time. And music and culture had changed so much from the early 90s to the late 90s, as you were saying with really like the death of alternative rock and then new metal and teen pop. I mean, it was just a completely different world.

And it did feel a little like, well, almost everything else that was around Pearl Jam, like already was gone, really, by 98. And it just felt like, well, they're part of a world that is passe, you know. So it did feel to me at the time that, you know, maybe this band's starting to peter out. I think the reason why they have endured, well, I think there's two reasons for that. The first reason that they've endured is the power of no, you know, which was something that Eddie Vedder, I think, discovered in the mid-90s when Pearl Jam was so big, he just discovered the power of no, the idea that you don't have to make music videos, that you don't have to do

the Rolling Stone cover story. You don't have to get on the hamster wheel of success. And all these decisions that Pearl Jam made that in the short term appeared to be self-destructive or nonsensical, I think a lot of those decisions paid off in the long run in terms of not, yeah, in terms of not burning out the band. So I think that was important. The other reason why I think they've endured is they really recalibrated. by the end of the 90s, going into the 2000s, as being this working live band.

Like, this is what our identity is going to be. We're not going to be the band that has huge radio hits and is on MTV. We're going to be the band that we're going to tour a lot, and we're going to be super reliable. There's this quote in the book where it's from Matt Cameron when he joined the band in 98, and he complimented Pearl Jam on, like, I forget the exact quote, but he uses the adjunct. workmanlike. Workmanlike. As a compliment for Pearl Jam.

And, you know, as music critics, when we use the term workmanlike, it's always an insult. It is this, it's this, you know, the connotation of it is that you're just going through the motions and performing your music in like this sort of wrote. It's boring. Boring manner. And critics have used the term workmanlike to disparage Pearl Jam. And I just thought that was an interesting, you know, sort of juxtaposition there of using workmanlike as an insult, but also looking at it from the other way of it actually being this thing about being a professional, that every night you go out and you put on a great show and there's a reliability to that. And I think after how tumultuous the 90s were for Pearl Jam, where they were this band at the Eye of the Hurricane.

and it appeared that they were going to break up, like on several different occasions, to have that kind of stability was really attractive, I think, for them. And it's created this framework that I think has allowed them to thrive over the course of decades. I think you and I both have a lot of affection for like the bootleg avalanche era that sort of accompanies that recalibration, right? Like I listen to all 25 or whatever of the first, you know, the first, you know, first leg of the North American tour, whatever, like binarral, right? Like, it's like 2000, 2001. And like, I'm sitting there listening to like 25 different versions of rearview mirror and like imagining at least that I can discern like these amazing, you know, nuances between them. Is that when you

personally realized like that they were making this recalibration? Was that obvious to you in retrospect? Or was it clear at the time that they sort of redefine themselves as a live band, you know, and as a bootleg friendly band? Well, you know, my, My arc with Pearl Jam, I think, is fairly typical in that I love them in the 90s, and then I bailed on them in the 2000s. And then, like, at the end of the 2000s, going into the early 2010s, I started to become interested in them again. And it was really because I was going to UCD stores, and I was starting to buy these bootlegs from that 2000 tour. And you could buy them at that time for peanuts. It was like four or five bucks a show.

And it was through those bootlegs that I got back into the band. And I think why that worked for me is that those early records are so ingrained in their era. And they're so ubiquitous. Like, if you grew up at that time, even if you're not a Pearl Jam fan, there's probably six or seven songs that you've heard a hundred times. And there's songs that you don't really want to hear again. Even if they're great songs, you're sick of them. So to hear these live versions, it was just, it was like a, it was like the back door into a house that I had already visited.

You know, it's like I can see this new room in the house and it was, it wasn't as tired as it may be seen before. And, you know, the thing with listening to all these bootlegs, whether you're listening to like one tour or you're listening to various tours is that you actually do start to hear the differences between the 25 different rearview mirrors. You know, you notice that Mike McCready solo is like. like a little bit different. You notice that Eddie Vedder does like a little ad lib. You notice that maybe someone in the audience makes like a weird whistling sound or something. And it's all these things that seem minor or unnecessary if you're not really interested. But for me, the thing, one of the things I love about bootlegs is the documentary aspect of it. The crowd. Yeah. The crowd, the, you know, hearing the room just, you know, feeling like, okay, this is.

what it was like in Lisbon in, you know, May of 2000. Yeah. I've been curious. Yeah. Yeah. And experiencing that. And that's always been part of the draw for me. And I think if you listen to a band that way, it is, and I've made this analogy before, but it is like following a baseball team or following a basketball team. Like if you, if you watch every, if you're a big basketball fan, you're watching every game, you know, it gets to a point where you want the team to win, but if they don't win, that's okay. You're going to watch the next game.

It doesn't really matter in terms of your fandom, whether they win or not. And you're watching it because you get to know the players. You get to know their personalities, their quirks. And all these minor things, like the guy that, you know, oh, he does that with his mouth guard. Oh, that's interesting. Oh, he wears his socks in that kind of way.

Like, all these little quirky things become, they become magnified. it kind of becomes part of what you love about it. Yeah. Is the connection with the Grateful Dead, given all that stuff, you know, overstated, you know, like, are the, as the, as the Venn diagrams of Pearl Jam and Grateful Dead, like, obviously, Pearl Jam are not a jam band, you know, as you say, McCready Solos can be the differentiator, but like the rearview mirrors aren't that different from night to night. Like, are people making too much of this idea of the Grateful Dead

comparison just because of all the bootlegs? Well, I think, Musically, there's not much similarity between the Dead and Pearl Jam. In terms of how they've built their career, the Grateful Dead, I think, is obviously a model for Pearl Jam. I mean, Pearl Jam, like, you know, literally, like, visited the Grateful Dead's offices and, you know, observed, like, how they handled their mailing list and, and just, like, the way that they engaged with their fans. You know, and I think Pearl Jam was really, like, ahead of the curve on that.

And this is another reason why I think that they've survived is that, you know, so many bands of the 90s were reliant on a rock radio ecosystem that... And major labels, yeah. And major labels that were about to fall apart and did fall apart in the 2000s. And a lot of those bands got stranded because of that. And what Pearl Jam did was they essentially built their own world outside of that ecosystem where they could see. still be a band that could play arenas and even stadiums, but as the years go

on, it just became less and less necessary to have the hit single, to, you know, do the glad handing with radio stations and, you know, or to have the music video, you know, that wasn't going to be something that

was important to them. And of course, as record sales became less significant for bands in terms of how they make money, you know, being able to cultivate a lot, show where people feel like, if I don't go to the show, I'm going to miss something because they're going to do something unique here. It's not just going to be...

And it's not just going to be the same set every night. It's not going to be, you know, it's like, I saw them once, I don't need to see them again. Like, with a band like this, it's like, I want to see them every time because I know they're going to probably take out a song I haven't heard before. They're going to do this crazy

cover. You know, it's going to be a unique experience. Yeah. I really liked your chapter talking about the latest a star is born, how like Eddie Vedder has the integrity of Jackson Maine, but like he's a survivor like Ali, you know, like Kirkobain, Lane Staley, Chris Cornell, it's really shocking the totality of the tragedy that's taken place around him. Like has your perception of Eddie Vedder changed now that he's kind of in some senses the last man standing?

Yeah, it is a, it is a really sad development from that corner. of like the music world of the 90s that all of those Seattle rock singers. And if you want to bring in Scott Weiland into that too, you know, they're not a Seattle band, but you know, they're adjacent to that. Yeah. Yeah. The thing with Eddie Vedder that I think is really interesting and heartwarming is that he is so, he seems so comfortable in his skin now compared to how he was in the 90s.

that you see him now or you see him on stage and there's such a joy about him. He really does have that sort of Springsteen like Patina of, you know, I just love being in a band. I love performing for people that I think he had in the 90s, but it was more complicated at that time. You know, and my theory on Eddie Vedder is that when he was in his 20s, he wanted to be in his 50s. You know, he always wanted to be a journeyman rock star who had seen a lot of stuff and had a lot of mileage on the tires. He wanted to be Pete Townsend. He wanted to be Neil Young. He wanted to be, you know, Joe Strummer.

You know, he had all of these father figures in the music world in the 90s. And I think because he was so successful so early on with Pearl Jam, it created this imposter syndrome. where, you know, do I really deserve this amount of attention? Do I really deserve this amount of fame? And it's like, if you've been on the road for 30 years and you have this big catalog of records and you've been proving it year and year out, you don't have to worry about imposter syndrome anymore. You know, like you have proven yourself.

And I don't know, I just feel like with him, it's like he is now what he always wanted to be. Like he is a guy in a band in his 50s. You know, I think he wanted to be that in 1992, but he was just too young. No, I think that's a very helpful framing that it was just a band of 20-year-old guys who wanted to be 50-year-olds or at least, you know, the important guy did. It's funny you say comfort because what I remember about him in the 90s is his discomfort, right? Like there's a quote. He says, like, when he was making verses, it's like, that's the worst record we ever made or the hardest record to make.

like it was so comfortable that I was uncomfortable. You know, like what Eddie Vedder communicated to me as a teenager in the 90s is like, you're not supposed to enjoy being a rock star. You're not supposed to be comfortable with the attention, the acclaim, you know, the money, you know, the fame, any part of it. You know, a discomfort was so central to what I thought of as his brand, you know,

his integrity that like it's a nice way to wrap it up, not to wrap it up, but it's nice that he's come around now, being comfortable because as you say, he is what he finally what he always wanted to be. Yeah, it's interesting with Vetter because, you know, so much of his image in the 90s, and this is also true of Kurt Cobain, a lot of the big alt rock stars, was this idea of selling out and the anxiety of being famous. And, you know, we look at that now and people don't really put a lot of stock into selling out. But, you know, I think there's another way to look at

And someone mentioned this to me in another interview early on about how today, I think, in the media, we're a lot more sensitive about mental health issues with celebrities. You know, like when it's not uncommon now to see a musician or an actor or an athlete say, I got to take a step back because I have to. Quidditor. Right. Yeah. Because I have to take stock up by mental health.

And people just understand that. And they're like, okay, that's, you know, do what you're going to. got to do. And, you know, Eddie Vedder didn't have the language to use those words in the 90s. And if he had, I don't think people would have understood. But really, I mean, that's what those guys were going through. They had mental health issues. You know, obviously with, you could see that manifested with Cobain, but I think also with Vetter, you know, just the incredibly destabilizing effect of, of that level of fame, which was just incredible on him. I don't think it's strange that he felt weird about that or bad about that.

I think that's something that if we can look at it through a modern lens and kind of take out the sellout aspect of it. Makes sense. I think it's more understandable now. And I think if there were a modern equivalent of Eddie Vedder, there'd probably be fewer people just saying, well, just deal with it or just enjoy it. Stop whining. Right, right. Just enjoy being famous. I think there'd be more people saying like, no, this is a hard thing to have this much attention on you.

And it's understandable that you may want to take a step back. Because, again, the power of no. I mean, Eddie Vedder did something in the 90s that you see musicians and actors and athletes do more often now, say, use the power of no and back off. because they know it's better for their personal health to do that. Yeah. Just to wrap up, just because this is primarily a McCready song, like,

is he underrated overall as like a guitar hero type? You know, obviously he worships Jimmy Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughn, you know, is he anywhere close to that tier? Is he underrated? However you want to frame it, but like,

do we not think enough about him as just like a central guitar god of that? era and even now. Yeah, I mean, I think McCready's misfortune is that he was a traditional guitar hero in an era where that just was not valued at all, at least not among mainstream rock consumers. You know, there's always going to be like the, you know, the contingent of music fans who subscribe to guitar magazines, you know, and I'm sure they have collected Pearl Jam tablatures and, you know, and they probably hold McCready.

in the proper esteem, but, you know, even for these, like, alt-rock bands who were clearly influenced by 70s hard rock, you know, Led Zeppelin, the Who, Jimmy Hendrix, all that guitar hero stuff, you still couldn't, like, put your guitar player up as, like, as a god, you know, you still had to at least go through the paces of, we're a punk band, you know? So we reject guitar solos, even though we have like a ton of guitar solos in our music. So, yeah, I mean, I do think McCready is underrated in the general consensus of, you know, how we understand guitar heroes for sure. But yeah, I just think that was a product of that era.

How many times have you seen Pearl Jam, Steve? See, this is going to immediately discredit me in the eyes of some Pearl Jam finance. Because I've only seen them about a half dozen times. That's pretty good. I understand that's not a fanatical level, but a half dozen times is still a half dozen times, man. See, there's going to be people now who hear that, and they're like, I'm canceling my order of the book.

He has to have seen the band a minimum of 50 times. 20. Okay, 50. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. 20, those are rookie numbers. You know, I think for like the fanatics, you've got to get at least up to 50 before you're like, even in the conversation for being like a real fan.

But yeah, again, like, I mean, I wish I was more into, I had been more into them in the 2000s because I love those tours. They were playing a lot. I would have had more opportunities to see them. And I just wasn't into them at that time. And, you know, they tour fairly often in the 2010s, but it's not the same, really, level. Especially post-COVID, right. And they were also, by that time, I mean, they had really established their bona fides, I think, as an arena rock band. In the early 2000s, I think they were,

I mean, they were still playing big rooms, but I think they were still in a way proving themselves. I mean, now, like, a Pearl Jam ticket is, like, hard to get, you know, and you're going to be paying a lot of money for, so you have to kind of pick your spots a little more now than maybe you could 20 years ago. Well, my work here is done, Steve. Please don't cancel your order of Steve's Pearl Jam book. He's definitely an expert. It's been great to talk to you as always, man.

Thanks so much for coming on. Thanks, Rob. Always a pleasure. Thanks very much to our guest this week, Stephen Hayden. Thanks to our producers, Jonathan Kerma and Justin Sales. And thanks, as always, to you for listening. And now, why don't you go ahead and go listen to Yellow Ledbetter by Pearl Jam. We'll see you next week.