Leaping from obscurity to superstardom, the band sold more than 15 million copies of its first two albums, and after a couple of years during which they got mired in high-profile controversies, Pearl Jam recovered and were still filling arenas at the close of the 2000s. But the band became an American rock institution by broadening their heavy, Led Zeppelin-influenced sound while maintaining the emotional depth that made their songs so resonant in the first place. Lightning Bolt debuted at #1 on the Billboard Top 200 chart as well as #1 on iTunes in over 50 countries and is available now at, via iTunes and all major retailers.Īlong with Nirvana, Pearl Jam were initially known for popularizing grunge, the Seattle sound that exploded nationwide in the early Nineties. Although the song got little attention, winning the battle against Sony’s powerful CEO Tommy Mottola, was a huge moment for the band and their manager Kelly Curtis.Pearl Jam released their much-anticipated tenth studio album, Lightning Bolt, through Monkeywrench Records/Republic Records on October 15, 2013. In the end, the label agreed to issue Oceans (after Alive, Even Flow and Jeremy) as the fourth and final single from the album. Legend has it, that Vedder neither wanted to make a video nor promote it further. My world to black” – from “Black” by Pearl Jamĭue to its personal nature the band refused to release the song as a single – although Pearl Jam’s label Epic, a sub-division of Sony Records, urged them to after Ten became a huge commercial success in 1992. In later years, Vedder notably rendered the added lyric “We belong together” as “I’ve been healed” or “We didn’t belong together” indicating his moving on from the relationship and being content with how it ended. It’s a harsh one, because then your truest one is the one you can’t have forever.” I’ve heard it said that you can’t really have a true love unless it was a love unrequited. In the 2011 documentary Pearl Jam 20 Vedder explains: “The song is about letting go. “It’s very rare for a relationship to withstand the Earth’s gravitational pull and where it’s going to take people and how they’re going to grow. It is assumed to be referencing his relationship with musician Beth Liebling, whom Vedder had been dating since 1983, married in 1994 and divorced in 2000.

Vedder never talked about the personal story behind the lyrics, but he showed strong emotions while performing it live in early years. “All the pictures have all been washed in black, tattooed everything.” – from “Black” by Pearl Jam On his way to join the band, he wrote lyrics for E Ballad, which he then called Black. The rest of the band was impressed by his work and invited him to Seattle. Eddie Vedder, who was working at a gas station in San Diego at the time, got his hands on it and recorded vocals for three of the songs that would later become Alive, Once and Footsteps. ” – from “Black” by Pearl JamĮ Ballad was one of five tracks compiled on a tape called Stone Gossard Demos ’91 that was circulated in order to find a singer as well as a drummer.

“And now my bitter hands chafe beneath the clouds of what was everything. Its arrangement, however, is quite similar to the final song: the clean-channel intro, both guitars, the bass, and the simple drum track, as well as the acoustic guitar alternates between E-major and E-minor chord progressions. Initially, guitarist Stone Gossard who wrote the demo in 1990 named the ballad in the key of E simply E Ballad. Since first performing it live on Octo(the band was still called Mookie Blaylock) at Seattle’s Off Ramp Café, Peal Jam is said to have played the song about 500 times. But why can’t it be mine?” How can one not be touched by these words? They are the final lines of one of Pearl Jam’s best-known songs, “a sad tale of lost love”, as Rolling Stone Magazine once called it.īlack is the sentimental center piece on the Pearl Jam’s debut album Ten (1991). SOUNDS OF SILENCE // “I know someday you’ll have a beautiful life, I know you’ll be a star in somebody else’s sky. Pearl Jam lead singer Eddie Vedder used to be close friends with Johnny Ramone and is president of a Ramones fan club // (c) YouTube

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