Track 15 - “Even Flow” by Pearl Jam (1991)

From the album Ten

Music by Stone Gossard; lyrics by Eddie Vedder

Performed by:

Eddie Vedder – lead vocals

Stone Gossard – rhythm guitar  

Mike McCready – lead guitar   

Jeff Ament – bass

Dave Krusen - drums

US Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks - #3; US Billboard Modern Rock Tracks - #21

VH1 100 Greatest Hard Rock Songs - #30; Rolling Stone 100 Greatest Guitar Songs - #77

Freezin’

Rests his head on a pillow made of concrete, again

Oh, feelin’

Maybe he’ll see a little better set of days, ooh yeah

Oh, hand out

Faces that he sees time again ain’t that familiar, ooh yeah

Oh, dark grin

He can’t help, when he’s happy he looks insane, hm yeah

Even flow, thoughts arrive like butterflies

Oh, he don’t know, so he chases them away

Oh, someday yet, he’ll begin his life again

Life again, life again

 When I was in my mid-thirties, one of the people in my life I would consider a mentor, a gentleman named Cliff said something to me I’d never forget; truth be told, he said many things to me I’ve never forgotten, but those are stories for another time. On this occasion though, I was having a bad day, leaning back in my chair at my desk and cursing under my breath, when he finally asked me what the problem was. I told him I just wasn’t feeling it that week; I was worried about my recruiting activity and my numbers for the month and was just generally stressed. The following conversation ensued:

Cliff: “How are things at home? You and your wife getting along?”

Me: “Yeah, fine.”

Cliff: “Kids are good? They’re healthy and happy?”

Me: “Yes, they’re great.”

Cliff: “And you’re healthy? Drove to work in your new Jeep this morning? They got your coffee order right downstairs today?”

Me: “Yeah…I don’t get all the questions.”

Cliff: “OK so the only thing giving you a pain in the ass is work then, right?”

Me: “Yeahhh…. so?”

Cliff: “What I’m trying to tell you is not everything will be firing on all cylinders all the time. If things are not good at home, they’ll be great at work. If you have a bad month here, you have good times at home. One of the kids keeps you up all night with an ear infection, but maybe you close your biggest deal ever the next day. The point is that you take the wins and the good stuff when you can, because there will always be something that’s not right or a little off.”

I looked at him, of course knowing he was right and that what he was saying made absolute sense; it’s always something, but how we process those things is what separates happy people from miserable people. Through the years since that exchange, I’ve taken Cliff’s words to heart and thought about them often when I was facing down a crisis, or if I was just having another bad day. Sometimes when I recall that sage advice it also leads me straight back to a time in my life when all those cylinders were firing, or at least when everything seemed to be right where I wanted. It was when my parents were still infallible to me, when my entire family was healthy, and when it didn’t matter how much money I had in the bank; it was when I had tremendous confidence, before a bad relationship screwed that up, and when I worked with great people and when my job was just a place to have a good time. And then I remembered when all those things literally tumbled off a precipice, when my life suddenly got real, and the curtain was pulled back. It was as if someone pulled a blindfold off me and said, “Dude the party’s over.” And maybe the worst part of it was I stopped paying attention to the world around me and participating in all the things that gave me joy back then, and shaped who I am now: sports, reading, spending time with my family and friends, and of course, music. The things that should have kept me afloat back when it seemed nothing was going right, I completely ignored. I was 100% distracted and while it may sound dramatic, part of me disappeared. I was, as Cliff used to also say, “stuck in my own head.”  It was a learning experience I’ll never forget, but in a way, it woke me up. That one year, 1991, taught me a lot about life and how to handle what it may throw at you. You can probably guess that music helped lift me out of that challenging year, and more specifically, a band borne out of a tragic loss.

Pearl Jam formed from the remnants of two legendary Seattle bands: Green River and Mother Love Bone. Guitarist Stone Gossard and bassist Jeff Ament were members of Green River, and after they disbanded, they went on to form Mother Love Bone with singer Andrew Wood. With their debut album set for release in March of 1990, Wood overdosed on heroin and died a few days later, effectively rupturing the band. In shock and grieving the loss of their friend and bandmate, Gossard and Ament would not play together for months, but eventually they reconnected and recorded a demo tape with guitarist Mike McCready. They sent the tape around Seattle looking for a singer and a drummer. Former Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Jack Irons sent the tape to his friend in San Diego, singer Eddie Vedder, who was spending his days surfing and working odd jobs. Vedder wrote lyrics and sent back the tape with his recorded vocals overdubbed on three songs (“Alive”, “Once” and “Footsteps”) and was immediately invited to Seattle to audition. The chemistry was instant; Ament would later say that the arrival and presence of Vedder helped them “fall in love with music again.” They soon added drummer Dave Krusen, and decided to call themselves Mookie Blaylock, after an active NBA basketball player on the New Jersey Nets. By the time they signed with Epic Records to record their debut album in 1991, they had renamed themselves Pearl Jam. They would release Ten in August of 1991, and while the album sold slowly at first, the band toured relentlessly to support it. It wouldn’t be until another album by a Seattle band, Nevermind by Nirvana, exploded in late 1991 and early 1992, that Pearl Jam’s Ten would also get noticed and become one of the bestselling albums of all time.

While Pearl Jam was forming in Seattle and an entire music scene was beginning to take shape, I was busy just trying to get through each day. In late 1990, my family began to face a crisis that nearly splintered and bankrupted us, and whose consequences were spilling into 1991. It showed no sign of going away quickly, and we struggled to keep functioning as individuals and as a family. I think my brother and I realized at the time that our parents were human, and they were not invulnerable, and that they made mistakes, like everyone else. Unlike when we were children, they couldn’t protect us from what was happening, and we learned of some bad decisions that were made and the consequences that came with those decisions. On top of that, and looking back, maybe the worst thing of all, was after a brief period of remission, my grandmother’s cancer had come back, with what seemed like a vengeance this time, and the prognosis wasn’t good. And there were other things going on that year; that great part-time job I’ve talked about so much was no longer so great. I finally realized who you work with was equally as important as the job itself, and with most of the crew I used to work with gone, and a new manager with no sense of humor running things, I dreaded going into work. I was also in one of those serious dating relationships that everyone is telling you is destructive and unhealthy, but you seem to be the only one unable to see it. I never saw any of my friends anymore; if I wasn’t giving my girlfriend a ride to or from work, I was rushing home to make sure I called her on time, because if I didn’t, I had to be out with another girl, right? I had stopped playing hockey, something I’d done since I was ten years old, and I also dropped volleyball as well, something I had started playing after I graduated from high school. I hadn’t picked up a book and read for pleasure in months, and I read what I had to read for school begrudgingly. Speaking of school, I was also doubling up on the business classes I needed to graduate because I had declared my accounting major a year late. I’d be a senior that fall, and I didn’t want to be short the credits I needed and be under pressure as I neared graduation. But I was neglecting my schoolwork and studying way less than I should have been, doing just enough to pass and get by. At a time when my parents needed money, I was literally throwing it away by not giving school my full attention. I truly felt like nothing was going right back then; only a year before, I’d felt like I had no worries at all, and now my life was a minefield of them. What happened? Is this what adulthood was going to look like? Endless stress and heartbreak? I seriously wanted no part of it if this is what I had to look forward to. And music, the one thing that might have helped me get through this mess? Let’s just say I found a lane and stayed there for a while…but at least it was a good lane. There were two amazing albums I listened to basically the entire year: Empire by progressive metal band Queensryche (who we’ll talk about again), and Out of Time by Georgia college radio band R.E.M. I wore out those two CD’s that year; if I was home, I had them on, memorizing each beat and lyric, convincing myself I needed these two albums specifically to help me get through each day. If I was in the car, and the radio was on, it was a lot of EMF, Jesus Jones, Chris Isaak and Marc Cohn, who all had top 20 singles that year, and were being played on MTV constantly. All that great alternative music I was listening to the year before, like Depeche Mode, New Order and Nine Inch Nails? Gone, fallen by the wayside. I was so out of touch musically, that four of the biggest albums of the 1990s were released that year, and they did not come up on my radar until early 1992:

 -          Metallica (The Black Album) by Metallica

-          Use Your Illusion I & II by Guns N Roses

-          BloodSugarSexMagik by Red Hot Chili Peppers

-          Achtung Baby by U2

 That’s how distracted I was. Sure, I heard about these albums on MTV and probably heard some of the songs on the radio, but the sad part was that I didn’t care. It wouldn’t be until the early part of 1992 that a lot of the weight of 1991 began to slip away and fall behind me that I would start to care about things like music again.

 And as the calendar turned to 1992, it seemed as if life was improving somewhat. In September of 1991, I secured an internship through school with a local accounting firm, and though it was a bumpy start, it turned out to be a great learning opportunity, and within a few months I was handling challenging projects. It was hard walking away from my part-time job selling sneakers in the mall, the job that had taught me so much and where I’d met so many great people, but I knew it was time to move on. Things at home were also beginning to improve; my family’s financial situation was easing, and although my father had to rebuild his career, he too was ready to move on from what was familiar and challenge himself. More importantly, the sense of security that your family was supposed to provide seemed to be returning. And that unhealthy relationship I was in? Well, thankfully she did me a favor and ended things after the holidays. Once I got over the shock, I was relieved, and I think so were a lot of the people around me. We did lose my grandmother though, in August of 1991; as I mentioned above, that was probably the worst thing my family and I went through that year. Looking back now, I was so worried about my father losing his own mother that I’m not sure I ever properly grieved that loss. By the time I graduated college and my brother graduated high school in the spring of 1992, everything seemed to return to a sense of normal again. And through all this, there was a cultural and musical revolution happening; it just took me awhile to catch up. By early 1992, I had finally heard Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and seen the video of the pep rally gone awry, in my friend Todd’s basement one Friday night (we’ll revisit that moment in greater detail somewhere down the road.) I immediately bought Nirvana’s Nevermind and after hearing “Under the Bridge” by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, I picked up their album BloodSugarSexMagik, and both quickly became staples in my collection; Achtung Baby, Use Your Illusion I & II, and Metallica, soon followed, and I also began to explore Todd’s huge collection of vinyl and CD’s, discovering some great rap and hip-hop as well. I was beginning to feel like myself again. But in May of that year, I discovered the Seattle band that was slowly making a name for themselves and whose debut album was beginning to get attention. I had heard the name Pearl Jam floating around as one of the new bands in the new “Seattle scene” but had yet to hear them. So, when I was home that day in May and the video for “Even Flow” came on, I stopped whatever I was doing and watched. And looking back, how could I not? The video is a straightforward performance video, filmed at the Moore Theatre in Seattle. What grabbed me at first was how simple it looked, and then of course, when the song really kicks in, it’s all power and energy. This band did not look like the rock bands I had grown up with in the 80s. In fact, they looked like they had just woken up, grabbed their instruments and jumped onstage. They wore regular jeans, t-shirts and flannel shirts, and beat-up combat boots; the bass player had on this big puffy hat, basketball shorts and high tops. There was no hairspray or leather or spandex or pink guitars. And the singer? He was practically attacking the microphone, and the way he delivered whatever story he was telling with that song made it impossible to look away. When he sang the lyrics, “…he don’t know, so he chases them away…”, he made pushing gestures at the air and he had this crazy look in his eyes, making you believe was really seeing things and chasing them away. He threw himself around the stage between verses, and during the solo break, he climbed to the rafters and calmly fell onto the audience, who delivered him back to the stage. It was incredible. It was like nothing I had ever seen before. There were no light shows, no explosions, no stage props…just five guys pouring their souls and sweat onto that stage. So, this was Pearl Jam; I immediately wanted more. When I saw my brother later that day, I asked if he had heard of them, and I will never forget him nonchalantly telling me I could borrow his copy of their album Ten if I wanted; all this time, the CD had been in his room. So, I listened and was blown away, and so began my obsession with Ten, and with Pearl Jam. To me they were the perfect rock band, and Ten was a perfect record. All the songs had a powerful groove, and this sense of urgency about them; and the slower songs, like “Black”, “Jeremy” and “Oceans” had this wonderful sadness about them. I bought my own copy of Ten and listened over and over. As 1992 moved forward, grunge and alternative music literally exploded, and it came at a time when my generation seemed to need it in a way. The bands that performed this music derided the glitz and glam of the 80s, and their appearance and the music reflected that attitude. As I discovered more of this music, and alternative became what dominated radio and album charts, I completely bought into it, and I pushed aside most of the bands I had listened to in the 80s. The alternative music those crazy guys from Pennsylvania introduced me to a couple of years ago was now everywhere; soon it would cease being “alternative.” When I look back, the thing that strikes me the most was how quickly it happened, and how big bands like Pearl Jam and Nirvana became; 1992 was just the beginning. As life settled back into somewhat of a groove again, I was happier than I’d ever been, but I also knew I had changed in a way. I had learned that life was never perfect and could surprise you at times. And as the years have gone by and I’ve met people and made friends, I’ve learned that everyone is dealing with or has dealt with challenges. That year that turned upside-down for my family and I, 1991, was not the last time I faced a crisis. In the years since, sometimes those proverbial cylinders have all been firing. When they’re not, I take the wins, make sure everyone around me is OK, and move on. And I’ve never forgotten the escape that Pearl Jam’s Ten provided and the rush of when I heard “Even Flow” for the first time. When I need a reminder that things can and do turn around, Ten is still the album I listen to.

And here is the video that blew me away back in the spring of 1992; may it have the same effect on you that it had on me!

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Next time…OK this one was pretty heavy, so the next entry will be lighter, I promise! We’ll talk about a singer-songwriter and how she helped me pick out new speakers for my stereo.  

 P.S.

Ten would eventually sell over 13 million copies, and produce two other singles in addition to “Even Flow”; “Alive” and “Jeremy”, which won Video of the Year at the 1993 MTV Video Music Awards. Ten is on too many “Best Of” lists to count; if you have never heard it, stop reading this and go stream it. It’s just one of those records that’s perfect from front to back, and whose songs have remained timeless. Last fall, I was able to find a copy on vinyl in a used record store, and I felt as if something had come full circle that day. Ten is just that special to me, and I know I was supposed to find and own that vinyl copy. Their next two releases, Vs. in 1993, and Vitalogy in 1994, also became #1 albums and broke sales records upon release. In terms of first three albums by any band, you’d have a hard time finding better. Of the many bands that emerged during that time in the early 90s, Pearl Jam has endured and remains one of the most popular bands in the world. They have remained intact, and not lost members to overdoses or other tragedies. And they’ve done it on their terms, not making any videos since Ten, fighting Ticketmaster in the mid-90s, and releasing hundreds of live “bootlegs” of their own shows. Pearl Jam has always been about their fans, and that’s probably why they have remained relevant for 30 years, and their fan base is still tremendously loyal (your host included.) “Even Flow” is still one of my favorite Pearl Jam songs, and I got to see them play it live at the Barclays Center back in 2013, the only time I’ve managed to see them.

After the recording of Ten, drummer Dave Krusen left the band and so began Pearl Jam’s revolving door of drummers. Matt Chamberlain, Dave Abruzzese, and Jack Irons all sat behind the drum kit until former Soundgarden drummer Matt Cameron joined in 1998 and he’s been with the band since. The frequent drummer changes are mentioned in the 2011 documentary PJ20, and it seems the band has a sense of humor about it. When Pearl Jam was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2017, all five of their drummers were invited, but only Dave Krusen and Matt Cameron attended the ceremony.

You can find the documentary mentioned above, PJ20, directed by Cameron Crowe, on Amazon Prime Video. It’s about Pearl Jam’s first 20 years, and I highly recommend it. There are several books about Pearl Jam’s legacy, but none seem authorized, and the reviews are spotty at best, so proceed with caution if you plan on reading further.

Our family has continued to have its ups and downs, as all families do. I’ve learned through the years how to deal with the bad and savor the good, and despite what might be going on, to not “disappear” like I did back in 1991. When I reflect on that time now, I remember my brother doing a better job of taking care of himself and leaning on friends and the things he loved to do to help him get through that time, and that was wise of him. My approach seemed to be, “When will all this end so I can start living again?”; obviously the wrong thing to do. Cliff’s sage words, more than a decade later, would solidify what I’d known all along: life will never be perfect, except for fleeting moments.  

When I was choosing the 50 songs for the playlist, “Even Flow” was one of the songs I knew would be on it. Picking nineteen other Pearl Jam songs to make a “best of” playlist proved much tougher, but here it is on Spotify. Did I miss any of your favorites? Leave it in the Comments! 

See you next time…

 JS

8/15/2022