The Pearl Jam track Eddie Vedder hates to sing: “That song is a pain in the ass”
Pearl Jam isn’t often a band you associate with protest music. While they have never been afraid to write songs with meaning and deliver passion with their lyrics, they are also not usually championed as revolutionaries. However, that doesn’t mean Eddie Vedder isn’t afraid to make his thoughts on specific topics heard, especially when writing songs about said topics. This can be seen on their track ‘Glorified G’.
The song is reportedly the result of a conversation that Vedder had with Dave Abbruzzese, Pearl Jam’s drummer from 1991 to 1994. As they were recording the album, the two had a conversation about guns, which is when it came to light that Abbruzzese had bought a couple of them. The drummer didn’t read too much into the conversation at the time, as he thought it was a relatively healthy discussion.
“I never felt offended or took any offence to the words because I thought it was cool that Eddie was able to take that conversation, and I admired the fact that it was a real creative way to pen a lyric,” he said, “To take notes of a conversation we were all having about something.”
Abbruzzese is referring to the fact that when the band were discussing guns, Vedder was making notes on what everyone was saying, intending to turn them into a song. The issues arose when the track was finished, and Vedder had only used a few specific phrases and turned the track into a big anti-gun anthem. While this aligned with his views, Abbruzzese didn’t think it was a true reflection of the conversation between the band.
“It was tongue-in-cheek, kind of making fun of gun ownership,” said the drummer, “I remember I was pretty offended by being attacked about it, because I really thought it was pretty candyass. I went camping and bought a couple of 22s. To me, a 22 rifle wasn’t a dangerous thing – it’s something that everyone gets when they’re a kid.”
One of the ways that Abbruzzese described his rifles was as a “Glorified version of a pellet gun,” which is one of the lines used in the song. It also helped inspire the name of the track ‘Glorified G’. During a show in San Diego, fans speculated that Vedder might regret writing the song or may have had a change of heart on his political leanings, as he changed the lyrics in the song to express his hatred for it, singing, “Glorified version and I hate this song.”
When the audio was played back to Vedder years later, he was finally able to explain why he had sung his revised lyrics. “That was probably later in the set […] I had probably hung out with my brothers the night before, maybe had a surf and, you know, we hung out,” he said, “It sounds like my voice is struggling there and that song is a pain in the ass to sing. Nothing personal about it, it was just that night.”
