The 25 most essential Pearl Jam songs

Emerging from a decade-long funk—one that not so coincidentally coincided with the lifespan of the George W. Bush administration—Pearl Jam righted themselves in 2009 with Backspacer, their first album to bear a Brendan O’Brien production credit since Yield. Generally a tighter, louder—and in the case of the lead single “The Fixer,” almost boisterous—album than its immediate cousins, Backspacer had a need for “Just Breathe,” which served as a bit of a respite from the clamor. A quiet, hushed reflection on gratitude, “Just Breathe” is sweetened by strings but it’s never saccharine: it’s clear-eyed and direct, its declaration of love all the more affecting due to the song’s simplicity.

The song that catapulted Pearl Jam into the mainstream in the summer of 1992, “Even Flow” doesn’t seem like a surefire modern-rock hit. Set aside that it’s a character sketch of a homeless man: underneath its guitar grind, the riffs and rhythms are winding and elliptical, driven by Mike McCready’s oddly bluesy attack. McCready’s funky attack leads Pearl Jam to lay back and jam, exploring textures and grooves as much as soloing. It’s up to Eddie Vedder to anchor the song, which he does not only through his words but his keening, gritty delivery; both his lyrics and singing teem with empathy.

Pearl Jam took a pause from their own trip in 1995 to cut a full album with Neil Young, one of their principal inspirations (at the time, Neil was christened the “Godfather of Grunge” on the cover of Pulse magazine). None of the band’s original compositions made the cut on Mirror Ball, so they were spun off as a single dubbed Merkin Ball. The anchor of Merkin Ball was “I Got ID”—the “ID” is a self-censor of “shit”—a thick and murky rocker displaying a direct debt to Crazy Horse: Vedder sounds like he’s wrestling with the band.

Tightly coiled and punchy, “Do The Evolution” is one of the liveliest and grooviest rockers in Pearl Jam’s catalog. The garagey swing, punched up by a fuzz guitar, is paired with a cynical Eddie Vedder lyric that takes the piss out of men who believe they’re immune from nature—a satire that’s musical, too: after he sneers “This is my church, I sing in the choir,” a mock gospel chorus descends on the mix. One of their sharpest, funniest, and hardest numbers.

“Corduroy” plays as a statement of defiance, a rejection of convention that leads to a stronger sense of self. Eddie Vedder’s lyric is somewhat evasive in its specifics: the words could be a reaction to a breakup, it could be an act of simple rebellion. The exact inspiration doesn’t matter, as Vedder lands upon a stance of resistance, buttressed by one of the punchiest riffs on Vitalogy as well as one of its catchiest melodies—music that makes the singer seem proud that he’s going to end up alone like he began.

Paired pointedly with “Spin The Black Circle” on Vitalogy, “Not For You” expands upon Pearl Jam’s celebration of old records, shifting the focus to the rock subculture at large. As the group maintains a slow, steady boil, Eddie Vedder glowers and glares at those encroaching on the sacred tenets of the underground. Delivered late in 1994, deep into Pearl Jam’s run as America’s biggest band and only months after the death of Kurt Cobain, “Not For You” drew a deliberate line between true believers and fellow travelers—the first indication that Pearl Jam would start to retreat from the fame they earned.

A ruminative piece of folk-rock evocative of R.E.M., particularly in how it rushes into place with the acoustic guitar and vocal at the beginning, “Elderly Woman Behind The Counter In A Small Town” is a deliberate miniature from a band that specializes in grandeur. The shift in scale does Pearl Jam considerable favors. A sketch of a woman growing older, just barely retaining memories of her younger self, it’s told with grace and sensitivity—a notion that countered the prevailing irony of the early 1990s.

Cameron Crowe lucked out. He planned Singles, his sequel to the teenage romantic comedy Say Anything, as his entryway into adult themes and a celebration of Seattle’s alternative rock scene. By the time it hit the theaters in September 1992, Nirvana’s Nevermind turned Seattle into a worldwide phenomenon, and at the center of that was “State of Love And Trust,” one of two Pearl Jam contributions to the soundtrack. Written by Eddie Vedder, Mike McCready, and Jeff Ament after a screening of the film, “State Of Love And Trust” is a true testimonial to the importance of personal connection delivered at a full-tilt roar. The subject may not be as weighty as the bulk of Ten, yet that relative lightness conversely gives “State Of Love And Trust” its enduring power: it’s about the ties that bind and last.

It may be a slower, sweeter song but “Daughter” is a cousin of “Jeremy,” swapping the rage for tenderness. An empathetic tale of childhood neglect, culminating in the soaring chorus of “She holds the hand that holds her down/She will rise above,” “Daughter” finds Eddie Vedder once again casting his lot with the neglected, providing enough empathy to skirt the edges of inspiration. “Daughter” became the first Pearl Jam song to cross over into the Billboard Top 40, assisted in that placement immeasurably by an acoustic guitar part that echoes the folk-rock of Led Zeppelin III, an ideal pairing for Vedder’s earnest melody.

Mike McCready wrote “Given to Fly” on a droning alternate guitar tuning, a sonic shift that lends the verses a dreaminess—a quality that floats through the rest of the song, even as Pearl Jam builds to a full roar on the song’s chorus. The band ebbs and flows throughout “Given to Fly,” their shifts mirroring the song’s lyrical concerns of a man yearning to escape. Ultimately, the band lands on a note of optimism, achieving transcendence over adversity, violence, and strife.

Unlike many other songs on Ten, “Jeremy” doesn’t derive from personal experience. Eddie Vedder read the story of a reserved Texas teenager who shot himself in front of a full classroom, a horrifying event that dovetailed with the other tales of trauma on Ten. Vedder’s empathy for Jeremy was evident in the lyrics and performance, particularly in how he built to a crescendo on a bridge daring the listener to “try to forget this.” Pearl Jam surrounded this catharsis with a shape-shifting aural atmosphere that helped give the record a sense of cinematic grandeur.

Driven by an insistent, pulsating guitar riff, “Rearviewmirror” creates the sensation of forward movement—a fitting feeling for a song that’s about running away, leaving bad vibes and relationships somewhere in your past. Eddie Vedder opens the song by declaring it’s “time to emancipate,” spending some time recounting the reasons that led to his escape from a poisonous relationship, yet “Rearviewmirror” stops just short of full catharsis thanks to that circling riff: it keeps the tension high throughout the record, the nervousness providing justification to flee.

Another song Stone Gossard wrote with Mother Love Bone in mind, “Alive” became indelibly stamped by Eddie Vedder. Taking a song originally known as “Dollar Short,” Vedder probed his painful past, turning the revelation that the man he believed to be his biological father was actually his stepfather into a bracing exploration of the lasting ramifications of childhood trauma. What’s striking years later is that the song doesn’t seem quite so heavy: the anger at its heart transformed into an anthem of survival.

Consigned to the B-side of “Jeremy” upon its original release in 1992, “Yellow Ledbetter” quietly became one of Pearl Jam’s signature songs. Catapulting from a cult item to an actual hit in 1994—during a period when the band was finalizing their third album, Vitalogy—“Yellow Leadbetter” plays like an extended sigh. Mike McCready’s silvery Stratocaster sets the tone: Eddie Vedder’s lyrics almost seem wordless—indeed, he often changed the lyrics while onstage; McCready later claimed in the liner notes for the rarities comp Lost Dogs that he didn’t know what it’s about—as if he’s consumed by the melody itself.

“Better Man” served as the pinnacle of Pearl Jam’s time as a charting rock band, reaching number one on Billboard’s Mainstream Rock charts and dominating radio play throughout most of 1995. Despite its soothing sway, the ballad is a bit of an unusual smash hit. A portrait of a woman who is stuck in a dead-end relationship, “Better Man” stops just short of urging its subject to leave her lover. The key to the song’s success—and its endurance—is its tenderness: Eddie Vedder writes from a place of compassion, a sentiment conveyed in the lyrics and the sweetest melody he ever crafted.

“Black” was Pearl Jam’s original word-of-mouth sensation—a song that worked its way into the upper reaches of Billboard’s Rock charts despite the band’s decision not to release it as an official single. Pearl Jam’s reluctance suited the emotional tenor of the song. A paean to the melancholy of love lost or never won, “Black” glides along to a delicate guitar part by Mike McCready, eventually cascading to a heavy minor-key chorus—a moment where it feels like Eddie Vedder’s sadness over his departed love becomes too much to bear. Vedder’s words are clearly etched yet “Black” doesn’t play as a solo track: it’s a testament to Pearl Jam’s chemistry. By the time “Black” builds to its conclusion, complete with Vedder vocalizing wordlessly, the band seems as one.