Pearl Jam - Corduroy

They can buy but can't put on my clothes.

Album: Vitalogy [3rd album]
Recorded: Seattle, Atlanta & New Orleans
Genre: Rock, Grunge
Album Release: November 22nd 1994
Length: 4:37
Producer: Brendan O'Brien & Pearl Jam
Vocalist: Eddie Vedder [age 29]
Label: Epic Records

Official Audio


Live

Charts, Streams & Sales

Australia (albums): #1 [4x platinum]
Canada (albums): [5x platinum]
Ireland (albums): #1
New Zealand (albums): #1 [1x platinum]
Sweden (albums): #1
UK (albums): #4 [1x gold]
USA (albums): #1 [5x platinum]
Spotify: 40,000,000 +
YouTube Music: 24,000,000 +
Grammy Awards 1996 Nominee: Best Album [losing to Alanis Morissette]
Grammy Awards 1996 Nominee: Best Rock Album [losing to Alanis Morissette]

Credits & Gear

Bass, drums, guitar [x3], mellotron, slide guitar

Details

• By 1994 the lead singer of Pearl Jam, Eddie Vedder, knew the commercialisation of grunge had reached a fever pitch when he saw a corduroy jacket in a shop window selling for $650. The style was popular amongst followers of the Seattle sound and just a few years prior Vedder purchased a similar coat for just a few dollars in a local charity shop.
  
  Paying $650 for a jacket was against the spirit of grunge, which valued anti-consumerism, and one of the ways it's adherents rejected such materialism was through the threadbare, bargain basement nature of their fashion. That someone would spend such an obscene amount of money on a jacket and claim to be "grunge" was an insult to the genre. $650 in 1994 would be worth $1,382 in October 2024. Vedder wrote 'Corduroy' as a response to this commercialisation. The song includes lyrics such as "they can buy but can't put on my clothes", meaning a poser can look the part while not "getting" the spirit of the music.
  
  

  

  Vedder in his trademark corduroy jacket
  

  
  Another line from the song is "I would rather starve than eat your bread" which suggests Vedder would rather die than sell his soul by betraying the authenticity of his music. By the mid-90's grunge-coded characters were appearing regularly throughout the media, and while some efforts, such as Cameron Crowe's film 'Singles' from 1992 made an effort to understand the genre, others adopted the aesthetic without giving much thought to the values and beliefs of the culture surrounding the music.
  
  
• Pearl Jam were originally named after the basketball player Mookie Blaylock but changed their name to avoid any possible legal action. Mookie wore the number 10 jersey, so Pearl Jam named their debult album 'Ten' as a way of saying goodbye to their past as well as honouring the player one last time.
  
  
• Pearl Jam started as a band without a vocalist. In 1990, an earlier incarnation of the group, Mother Love Bone, were on the verge of making it big in when their singer, Andrew Wood, died of a heroin overdose on March 19th at the tender age of 24. On July 19th, four short months later, Mother Love Bone released their first and last album 'Apple'. It wasn't the same without Andrew. He was another rocker who lost his life chasing the dragon and the band soon split. Not long after, the guitarist and bassist of Mother Love Bone reformed as Temple of the Dog and then, once more, as another group: Pearl Jam. The final incarnarion of the band were long in the making.
  
  At the same time, Eddie Vedder was working low-paid jobs as a security guard and a gas station attendant to pay the bills. He made music on the side until one fateful day in San Diego he heard a Pearl Jam demo that included tracks that would go on to be anthems in rock music, such as 'Alive' and 'Oceans'. The two joined forces and the rest is history. Pearl Jam released their debut album 'Ten' released only 13 months after 'Apple'.
  
  Would the group have enjoyed the same success without Eddie Vedder? No-one really knows. His raspy baritone gives the songs a unique texture that wouldn't be there if they had a different singer but it's impossible to know for sure. One thing's for certain, the tragic death of Andrew Wood and subsequent collapse of Mother Love Bone, created an opportunity for a new band to rise, phoenix-like from the ashes of the old.
  
  Two members of Mother Love Bone, Jeff Ament and Stone Gossard, had great songs they wanted to share with the world and they transformed their grief into something creative by forming Pearl Jam. When opportunity closes a door it often opens a window. Eddie Vedder became the rock star Andrew Wood was supposed to be but without Andrew there would be no Eddie.
  
  

Artwork