The 1994 Pearl Jam hit Eddie Vedder didn’t want to release: “The whole room was deflated”
When Eddie Vedder got the ball rolling in Pearl Jam, he wasn’t necessarily looking to become famous.
Becoming a rock star was always a pipe dream for people like him, and he would have been just as happy playing some of the smallest clubs to a bunch of devoted fans every time he got up onstage. Then again, time can change things, and his debut with Pearl Jam on Ten brought a lot of pressure they didn’t need.
In the wake of mammoth singles like ‘Alive’ and ‘Jeremy’, Pearl Jam was thrust to the top of the musical food chain, only staying one notch behind Nirvana throughout the decade. Instead of relishing the opportunity to become one of the biggest bands in the world, Vedder was uncomfortable with what fame brought and wanted to strip things back for the next album Vs.
That resistance to fame became one of the defining characteristics of Pearl Jam throughout the 1990s. At a time when many alternative rock bands were being rapidly absorbed into mainstream celebrity culture, Pearl Jam actively tried to distance themselves from the machinery surrounding them.
They reduced music videos, limited interviews and often prioritised artistic integrity over commercial opportunity, decisions that only strengthened their reputation among fans who saw them as one of the few major rock bands unwilling to fully play the industry game.
‘Better Man’ perfectly captured the internal tension surrounding that philosophy. On one hand, it possessed all the ingredients of a massive radio single, with its instantly memorable chorus and emotional accessibility.
On the other, the band feared becoming overly polished or predictable at a moment when they were desperately trying to avoid turning into a conventional arena rock act. The song’s eventual success proved that Pearl Jam could still connect on a huge scale without abandoning the vulnerability and rawness that had made them resonate in the first place.
To get their heavy side out, the band peeled things back and made a bolder answer to their debut, with some of the most ferocious songs of their career, like ‘Go’ and ‘Dissident’. Although there is a little bit of a comedown with the acoustic ditty ‘Daughter’, producer Brendan O’Brien remembered hearing the makings of a hit that got shot down by the rest of the band.
When talking to Rolling Stone about the sessions, O’Brien recalled hearing the beginnings of ‘Better Man’ for the first time during these sessions and freaking out. While Vedder had previously been working on the song with his band Bad Radio, he had no intention of turning it into a Pearl Jam song.
Since the song features a knock-out chorus, Vedder thought it would have been too saccharine for the rest of the band to take on, originally planning to give it to Pretenders frontwoman Chrissie Hynde. When O’Brien tried to convince the band to work on it, he was given an ice-cold reception, remembering, “I was like, ‘Awesome, that’s a hit. Why haven’t I heard that before?’ They all just looked straight down, and the whole room was deflated. I knew that I had said the wrong thing.”
Though Vedder didn’t give it to Hynde, the song became a pivotal part of their following album, Vitalogy. Despite guitarist Mike McCready having some problems with the finished album, ‘Better Man’ remained the project’s highlight, throwing it onto the record because of the ‘anything goes’ mentality that went into the rest of the record.
Even for a band that deflects the limelight every chance they get, the song has become one of the biggest reactions at Pearl Jam shows. When going through the main verse of the song, Vedder all but gives up singing any of the lyrics, with the audience starting to sing before he even says a word.
Although Pearl Jam was still on the rise in the 1990s, this way of Vedder peeling back did make the rest of the band a little uncomfortable, with McCready saying, “I was a bit bummed out because I wanted to keep doing it. We had this chance, let’s take it, y’know? Let’s not blow it. Luckily, it turned out we didn’t blow it because we’re still around.” Pearl Jam has certainly ascended to the realm of rock legends, but there was a painful gestation period when adjusting to their newfound fame.
