Pearl Jam has always ruffled a few feathers. They’ve never been one to silence their opinions, shield their views, and withhold what is going on in their minds. This is particularly true when it comes to their lead singer, Eddie Vedder, and the song “Glorified G.”
“Glorified G,” in short, is an anti-gun song promoting gun rights and restrictive gun ownership. However, there is a lot of baggage that goes along with the song. Aside from the evident political context surrounding the song, there is some personal context as well, mainly between Vedder and Pearl Jam’s former drummer, Dave Abbruzzese.
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The conversation that inspired the song transpired between the two musicians in a rather healthy manner. However, years later, Abbruzzese opened up the discussion and the song stating, “It was tongue-in-cheek, kind of making fun of gun ownership” and “I was pretty offended by being attacked about it because I really thought it was pretty candy—.” He added, “I went camping and bought a couple of 22s. To me, a 22 rifle wasn’t a dangerous thing – it’s something that everyone gets when they’re a kid,” per Farout.
Eddie Vedder’s Conversational “Misinterpretation”
Abbruzze took offense to the song because he believed the conversation between him and Vedder to be rather harmless. However, Vedder being a writer and fly-on-the-wall, used the conversation and spun a politically meaningful narrative out of it.
However, in retrospect, Eddie Vedder expressed his long-time grievances with the song, the story behind it, and the subject matter embedded in the lyrics. Matter of fact, years after the song’s release in 1993, Vedder actually changed some of the lyrics. Once at a concert, Vedder sang “Glorified version and I hate this song.”
Vedder acknowledged the changed lyrics by stating, “That was probably later in the set […] I had probably hung out with my brothers the night before, maybe had a surf and, you know, we hung out.” “It sounds like my voice is struggling there and that song is a pain in the a— to sing. “Nothing personal about it, it was just that night,” Eddie Vedder added.
All musicians have a song that can’t stand, it just happens that not a lot of them are about such a contentious topic. Nonetheless, it has remained a Pearl Jam and Eddie Vedder staple despite the subject matter and relationship baggage that goes along with it.
Photo by Theo Wargo/Getty Images
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