The Pearl Jam song Eddie Vedder called “too obvious”
Pearl Jam’s rise to fame was sharp. The grunge group never expected to find themselves in the limelight, and their success levels superseded their wildest expectations. Within a short time frame, they found themselves playing half-empty clubs to selling out arenas, and the drastic change took time for Eddie Vedder to accept.
Upon releasing their breakthrough album, Ten, Pearl Jam still largely evaded the attention of the masses. However, thanks to the success of Nirvana’s Nevermind, grunge unexpectedly became a mainstream phenomenon, opening the door for bands such as Pearl Jam to enjoy similar riches. By the end of 1992, over a year since its release, Ten had become a best-selling record, and their career has never been the same.
While many acts enter the music industry with aspirations of becoming a famous face, Vedder has always been purely focused on the art. Following their success, the frontman became a hero adored by millions, placing him in a position of power that made him feel uncomfortable and fostering ambitions of returning to normality.
Their second album, Vs, only propelled their superstardom further, selling almost a million copies in the first week alone and enjoying five consecutive weeks parked at the top of the Billboard 200. Yet, the fame only enhanced Vedder’s pain, which he detailed on ‘Corduroy’ on 1994’s Vitalogy.
The track’s title relates to a second-hand corduroy jacket he’d purchased for a handful of dollars, which had been re-made and sold for $650, which Vedder found symbolic. He later explained to the AV Club about the “ultimate” example of him being co-opted: “They put this new character on a soap opera, so there was a guy, more handsome than I, parading around on General Hospital. And the funny thing is, that guy was Ricky Martin.”
While many would have taken this as a compliment, Vedder felt incredibly uneasy, causing him to react on ‘Corduroy’. On the track, he furiously sings, “I don’t want to take what you can give, I would rather starve than eat your breast, All the things that others want for me, Can’t buy what I want because it’s free.”
However, following the release of ‘Corduroy’, Vedder expressed regret about the song’s lyrics, alluding to them being too on-the-nose. The vocalist told the Los Angeles Times in 1994: “It is about a relationship but not between two people. It’s more one person’s relationship with a million people. In fact, that song’s almost a little too obvious for me.”
“That’s why instead of a lyric sheet, we put in an X-ray of my teeth from last January, and they are all in very bad shape, which was analogous to my head at the time,” he added.
While the lyrics in ‘Corduroy’ leave little to the imagination, the track provides an eye-opening insight into his thought process during a challenging time when Vedder felt as if he’d lost his identity. Although he could have concealed the message, perhaps the song would have been less impactful.
