The Pearl Jam song Stone Gossard called “beautiful”
Following the immense success of Ten and Vs, Pearl Jam, despite being signed to a major label, were given a free creative license, which is rarely awarded to acts of any stature. They took full advantage of the trust placed on their shoulders with 1994’s Vitalogy, a record which further cemented their status as rock giants.
The band refused to sit still on the album and expanded their sonic horizons. While the easy route would have been for Pearl Jam to produce more of the same, considering they’d already proved a hit with fans. Although Vitalogy wasn’t an utterly radical reinvention and still essentially sounded like a Pearl Jam record, it contains a sense of maturity lacking from their previous output.
In the preceding years, Pearl Jam had picked up several battle scars on their journey, and they opened their heart on Vitalogy. Although Eddie Vedder was struggling with the pressures of fame, at the time, he had his first wife, Beth Liebling, to keep him grounded, and he shared his gratitude on ‘Nothingman’.
During an interview with the Los Angeles Times in 1994, Vedder said of the song’s meaning: “The idea is about if you love someone and they love you, don’t f–k up… ’cause you are left with less than nothing.”
For the track, bassist Jeff Ament dealt with the music with the help of guitarist Stone Gossard, and Vedder stuck to the lyrics, which only took him an hour to complete. The combined way ‘Nothingman’ was crafted is a testament to their chemistry, and for Gossard, it remains a highlight from his career.
During an interview with Guitar World, the musician named ‘Nothingman’ as a personal favourite, remarking: “The way this song came together, the way it sounds, the simplicity of it and the intention behind how it came about are all connected. It was a period of time when everybody in the band was a little frustrated.”
“All of us had been writing, and I knew Jeff [Ament, Bass] was in the studio with this song he had been working on,” he added. “So I dropped by to see if I could add some stuff—and within 20 minutes we had that song worked out. With that song, everybody in the band really took some steps toward each other, and something beautiful came out of it”.
Although ‘Nothingman’ isn’t as popular as other tracks in their back catalogue, its significance to Pearl Jam is difficult to downplay. They were all pulling in the same direction for the creation and operating like a well-oiled machine. There was no hierarchy to the group, with the trio each bringing their own elements to the mix, enhancing one another’s ideas, and operating as a true collective.
