Watch Pearl Jam pay tribute to the Queen by covering The Beatles
Queen Elizabeth II has received quite a few odes over her 70-year run as the monarch of the United Kingdom. There are positive ones, like the royal tea party put on by Pet Shop Boys in the song ‘Dreaming of the Queen’, but most tend to be slightly nefarious, including infamous examples like the Sex Pistols’ ‘God Save the Queen’, The Smiths’ ‘The Queen Is Dead’ and The Stone Roses’ ‘Elizabeth My Dear’.
But the original pop music ode to Elizabeth II came from Paul McCartney, who slipped in a cheeky music hall tribute to the Queen at the end of The Beatles’ 1969 masterpiece Abbey Road. After the final album-ending medley lands its final notes in ‘The End’, a 14-second pause seems to indicate that the album has come to a close. Then, a loud chord comes crashing in, followed by McCartney’s less-than 30-second ode to a “pretty nice girl” who “doesn’t have a lot to say”.
McCartney actually got to perform ‘Her Majesty’ in front of the Queen in 2002 as a part of the Golden Jubilee celebrations. It remains perhaps the most famous depiction of the Queen in song (minus the Sex Pistols’ vehement takedown), and ‘Her Majesty’ can still be heard around campfires in the hands of hapless acoustic guitarists everywhere.
Even the professionals like to take it on sometimes. Chumbawamba recorded a notorious version of the track, but recently a band with an even higher profile took on the song as a tribute to the late Queen. That would be grunge rock gods Pearl Jam, who snuck the song into their Toronto show the same day that Elizabeth passed away.
“This is just a little one I’m gonna borrow from Paul McCartney,” singer Eddie Vedder told the crowd before launching into ‘Her Majesty’. Rather than replicate McCartney’s intricate fingerpicking pattern, Vedder is content with strumming his way through the song and even drops the final note just like on the record. The rest of the band picks up the baton immediately as they descend into the Yield album closer, ‘All Those Yesterdays’.
Check out Vedder’s rendition of ‘Her Majesty’, plus ‘All Those Yesterdays’, down below.
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