2021 30th anniversary Record Store Day mini album with one sidelazer etched

This record store day release features the rare original promoversion of the single with different early versions of the tracksas well as a Beatles cover that werent released anywhere besides onthe first promo version of the single. Alive was Pearl Jam’s firstsingle, and appeared on the band’s debut album, Ten (1991). Thetrack was written by guitarist Stone Gossard, which he titled‘Dollar Short’, in 1990 when he was still a member of Mother LoveBone. According to Gossard in an interview for Pearl Jam’s VH1Storytellers special, Mother Love Bone frontman Andrew Wood hadeven sung on it. After Wood died of a heroin overdose, Gossard andhis bandmate Jeff Ament started playing with guitarist MikeMcCready with the hope of starting a new band. ‘Dollar Short’ wasone of five tracks compiled onto a tape called Stone Gossard Demos91 that Gossard, Ament, and McCready circulated in the hopes offinding a singer and drummer for the group. Vocalist Eddie Vedderobtained a copy of the tape and wrote lyrics that describe afictionalized account (though somewhat based on Vedder’s personalexperience) of the time when he was told that the man he thoughtwas his father was not actually his biological parent. It tells thestory of a young man discovering that his father is actually hisstepfather, while his mother’s grief leads to an incestuousrelationship with the son, who strongly resembles the biologicalfather. This leads to a later track called ‘Once’ in which the mandescends into madness and goes on a killing spree, and ‘Footsteps’in which the man is eventually looking back from a prison cellawaiting his execution. ‘Alive’ has been revealed by Vedder to bepart autobiographical and part fiction. When Vedder was a teenager,his mother revealed to him that the man he thought was his fatherwas actually his stepfather, and that his biological father wasdead. The first and last verses detail those actual events, but thesecond verse is storytelling on Vedder’s part. The lyrics of thesecond verse read, ‘Oh, she walks slowly, across a young man’sroom/She said I’m ready…for you/I can’t remember anything to thisvery day/’Cept the look, the look…/Oh, you know where, now I can’tsee, I just stare…’, and Vedder revealed that ‘she’ was the mother,and ‘the look’ referred to was not the look on her face, but ‘thelook is between her legs. Where do you go with that? That’s whereyou came from’. Rather than being the inspirational song mostinterpret it as, Vedder had quite a different meaning in mind,stating, ‘[He’s] still dealing with love, [he’s] still dealing withthe death of [his] father. All [he] knows is ‘I’m stillalive’…that’s totally out of burden’. ‘Alive’ was the first songfor which Vedder recorded vocals. Vedder mailed the tape back toSeattle. Upon hearing the tape, the band invited Vedder to come toSeattle and he was asked to join the band. The band, then calledMookie Blaylock, recorded ‘Alive’ during a demo session at LondonBridge studio in January 1991. The version recorded during thissession would later appear on the group’s debut album, Ten, and onthe promotional ‘Alive’ EP. During album mixing sessions in Englandin June 1991, mixer Tim Palmer had McCready add to the song’s outrosolo. McCready recorded a number of attempts at the solo, andPalmer edited them into a composite version. The guitarist wasunsatisfied with the result, so he made another attempt at thesolo. ‘He had another go at it’, Palmer recalled, ‘and got it rightaway. There was no piecing together to do; it was one take’. Vedderstated at Pearl Jam’s 2006 VH1 Storytellers appearance that overthe years the meaning has changed for him. He said, ‘In theoriginal story, a teenager is being made aware of a shocking truththat leaves him plenty confused…It was a curse—’I’m still alive’.The audience’s response to the song is what has brought about thechange in meaning for Vedder. He added, ‘They lifted the curse. Theaudience changed the meaning for me’. While the ‘Alive’ single wasreleased commercially to international markets in 1991, thecommercial single was not released in the United States until June27, 1995 and was only available as a more expensive import versionbeforehand. Prior to its commercial release, ‘Alive’ was releasedas a promotional cd and cassette featuring different artwork andB-sides. While ‘Wash’ was also a B-side to the commercial singles,‘I’ve Got a Feeling’ was only on the promotional version of thesingle. The guitar solo at the end of ‘Alive’ was also differentfrom the Ten version, and there are a few other noticeabledifferences between the two. Stephen M. Deusner of Pitchfork Mediasaid that ‘Alive’ remains potent not only because Vedder touches onsome seriously transgressive shit here (dead fathers, hints atincest, survivor guilt), but mostly because the band rock the hellout of that coda’. Gossard said that ‘not a lot of people thought[‘Alive’] was a great single when we released it…I don’t think thatthe record company thought it was a slam-dunk. They went, ‘Oh! Thisseems like the best one so far’. The song peaked at number 16 onthe Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks chart, number 18 on theBillboard Modern Rock Tracks chart and at number 16 in the UK.Although the album’s follow-up singles would find more success onthe rock charts, ‘Alive’ was nevertheless important in bringingattention to the band.

Track list:
1. Alive-promo version
2. Wash-original version
3. I’ve Got A Feeling-The Beatles cover
4. Dirty Frank-original version

Condition cover: nm

Condition vinyl: nm

Tänk på attfrakten blir billigare per vara ju fler du köper (se vårafraktvillkor för en portotabell). Så se mina övriga annonser,kanskehittar du något mer