‘Release’: the Pearl Jam song Eddie Vedder never finished writing
For many artists, some songs are never considered truly finished. Although they may go out on records and mean a great deal to everyone who hears it, any tune can evolve depending on how the artist performs it or whether they even relate to what they said when they first conceived it. While it was usually impossible to piece together what Eddie Vedder was saying at the best of times, he remembered barely even coming up with the idea for the Pearl Jam epic, ‘Release’.
Then again, anyone who can accurately describe every word that Vedder sang on the group’s debut, Ten, on the first listen deserves to be studied by science. The core piece of Vedder’s vocal tone didn’t exactly make for the most comprehensible delivery, which normally meant that people would need a lyric sheet to figure out what he was getting at.
And when we found out what was on his mind, it was pretty damn dark. ‘Jeremy’ was all about a kid who took his life in front of his classmates, and the less said about the more risque moments of ‘Alive’, the better off most of us will be. But underneath the raw anger in his voice was genuine pain, and ‘Release’ was the clearest indication of Vedder’s turmoil.
Since ‘Alive’ told a semi-true story about Vedder not knowing who his real dad was for ages, the closing track was an excuse for him to let out all of the pent-up emotions about his estranged father. Despite only having a handful of lyrics, each word cuts like a knife, which is unheard of considering Vedder was making it up on the spot.
When talking to Billboard in 1991, Vedder remembered that the entire track came together by accident, saying, “That was never written. Everyone was like plugging in their guitars and tuning up and setting up for when we started playing, and Stone starts doing this little thing, and I started checking the mic, and I started humming or moaning, or whatever the fuck I was doing, and all of a sudden we were playing this thing, and it just builds, and it was like eight-minutes long — and that was it. It had words. It had everything.”
While it does feel like a long drone-like piece on the record, there’s no other way that Vedder could have articulated his feelings. The music behind him feels like it’s just a base to put himself on top of, and when he talks about riding the wave as long as it takes him, you can hear his bandmates following him on every line until it just fades away.
In fact, looking back, maybe it was a little too powerful for Vedder. During their first rehearsals of the tune, bassist Jeff Ament remembered Vedder being emotionally distraught throughout the performance, eventually running away into the other room to compose himself after his vocals were finished.
Still, it’s not like that kind of raw vulnerability didn’t translate onto the tape. For all of the screaming taking place on the rest of Ten, ‘Release’ is the moment where all of that existential angst finally finds a place to rest.
