On his way to join the band, he wrote lyrics for E Ballad, which he then called Black. The rest of the band was impressed by his work and invited him to Seattle. Eddie Vedder, who was working at a gas station in San Diego at the time, got his hands on it and recorded vocals for three of the songs that would later become Alive, Once and Footsteps. ” – from “Black” by Pearl JamĮ Ballad was one of five tracks compiled on a tape called Stone Gossard Demos ’91 that was circulated in order to find a singer as well as a drummer.

“And now my bitter hands chafe beneath the clouds of what was everything. Its arrangement, however, is quite similar to the final song: the clean-channel intro, both guitars, the bass, and the simple drum track, as well as the acoustic guitar alternates between E-major and E-minor chord progressions. Initially, guitarist Stone Gossard who wrote the demo in 1990 named the ballad in the key of E simply E Ballad. Since first performing it live on Octo(the band was still called Mookie Blaylock) at Seattle’s Off Ramp Café, Peal Jam is said to have played the song about 500 times. But why can’t it be mine?” How can one not be touched by these words? They are the final lines of one of Pearl Jam’s best-known songs, “a sad tale of lost love”, as Rolling Stone Magazine once called it.īlack is the sentimental center piece on the Pearl Jam’s debut album Ten (1991). SOUNDS OF SILENCE // “I know someday you’ll have a beautiful life, I know you’ll be a star in somebody else’s sky. Pearl Jam lead singer Eddie Vedder used to be close friends with Johnny Ramone and is president of a Ramones fan club // (c) YouTube

Pearl jam black