The Song Eddie Vedder Wrote in High School Long Before It Became a Pearl Jam Anthem

As a teen, Eddie Vedder sat in his San Diego home with a four-track recorder to begin work on a new song. You can imagine his excitement as the idea began to coalesce into a fully formed composition. For any songwriter reading this, you know the feeling of chasing an elusive idea, an abstraction, and just as you’re about to give up on it, there it is: the point where the chords, vocal melody, and words suddenly become a song. But how many songs become anthems?

Bad Radio

Vedder’s journey to complete “Better Man” included performing it with his pre-Pearl Jam group, Bad Radio. You can find footage of the singer playing it with them in a local San Diego club.

Waitin’, watchin’ the clock, it’s four o’clock, it’s got to stop.
Tell him, take no more, she practices her speech,
As he opens the door, she rolls over.
Pretends to sleep as he looks her over.

“Better Man” echoes Vedder’s improbable journey to connect with Stone Gossard, Jeff Ament, and Mike McCready in Seattle. But the San Diego kid and his song eventually found a new home in Seattle, with Pearl Jam.

“Sometimes I think of how far I’ve come from the teenager sitting on the bed in San Diego writing ‘Better Man’ and wondering if anyone would ever even hear it,” Vedder said.

She lies and says she’s in love with him,
Can’t find a better man.
She dreams in color, she dreams in red,
Can’t find a better man.

Don’t Call It a Hit

When producer Brendan O’Brien first heard “Better Man”, he told the band he thought it was a hit. However, O’Brien was new to working with Pearl Jam and had yet to absorb just how little interest they had in chasing a hit single.

But, of course, he wasn’t wrong. The band attempted to record the song multiple times, including for their 1993 release, Vs. After multiple attempts, the final version appearing on Vitalogy was spliced together using various live recordings as well as a sound check. Well, almost.

Still, Vedder wasn’t convinced. He thought the track sounded too “big,” so O’Brien convinced him to fly to Atlanta, and together, they re-recorded the song with only guitar, voice, and organ. Then the various iterations were stitched together, featuring a combination of the live recordings and Vedder and O’Brien’s studio takes.

Over the life of the song, from its inception in San Diego until its release in 1994, “Better Man” has endured an arduous journey from an idea to a song to an anthem.

Photo by Dave Simpson/WireImage