Pearl Jam covers: Acoustic cover songs – music videos by the songwriters of the Laptop Sessions video blog. Daily music blog with new indie rock acoustic songs.
C F C
I wish I was a neutron bomb – for once, I could go off.
I wish I was a sacrifice, but somehow still lived on.
I wish I was a sentimental ornament you hung on
The Christmas tree… I wish I was the star that went on top…
C F C F C
I wish I was the evidence, I wish I was the grounds
C F C G F
For fifty million hands upraised and open toward the sky
I wish I was a silhouette – someone who waited for me.
I wish I was as fortunate, as fortunate as me…
I wish I was a messenger and all the news was good.
I wish I was the full moon shining off a Camaro’s hood.
SOLO: G – F – C / G – F – C / G – F – C
I wish I was an alien at home behind the sun.
I wish I was a souvenir you kept your house key on…
I wish I was the pedal brakes that you depended on.
I wish I was the verb “to trust” and never let you down.
I wish I was a radio song, the one that you turned up.
I wish I was…
** These chords and lyrics are interpretations and transcriptions, respectively, and are the sole property of the copyright holder(s). They are posted on this website free of charge for no profit for the purpose of study and commentary, as allowed for under the “fair use” provision of U.S. copyright law, and should only be used for such personal and/or academic work. **
You know what I wish? I wish that I would wake up tomorrow and there would no longer be anyone on the entire planet who smoked cigarettes. Never mind the health risk — which, by the way, there are few ingestible products that come with a “may cause cancer” label. The concept of breathing tar into your lungs aside, let’s consider the ramifications to non-smokers on the road. For instance, I sat in a McDonald’s drive-through tonight for ten minutes and was delighted by not only the automobile emissions but two smokers puffing away. The breeze was such that my car was filled with noxious fumes.
In a sense, this was great, because the fish filet and large fries actually seemed healthy by comparison! 🙂
Seriously, though, what really gets me is the disposal of the butts. It’s happened so many times recently that I’ll be driving down the road and someone in the car ahead of me will flick a lit cigarette out of their window. I don’t know if it’s due to me being older, a generally law-abiding dork, a teacher of transcendental texts like Emerson’s “Nature,” or a combination of the three, but this is enough to drive me crazy recently. To paraphrase our friend Matt Griffiths from the WCJM morning show, it’s just enough to tweak my hypothalamus and send me into an uncontrollable rage!
I suppose I simply can’t imagine driving in my car, holding a lit piece of paper in my hand, and saying to myself, “I’m done with this. Why not chuck it out the window?” Since when did that become the acceptable form of cigarette disposal?! Think twice ye smokers, lest you piss off the drivers behind you (such as myself tonight when a highly tossed butt bounced off my car, lit ashes flying everywhere)…
For those of you wondering what this has to do with my post tonight, prepare to be dazzled. Well, maybe not dazzled…
Just as I have ranted about something that has bothered me and later wondered if it was too negative, so did Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam decide that he should try writing something positive. Out of a lengthier “stream-of-consciousness exercise,” we have the “better wishes” presented in this little gem of a song. It was an instant favorite of mine upon first listening to Pearl Jam’s 1998 album Yield. As with Binaural, I wasn’t sure what to expect with this album, as it sold less and seemed generally regarded as at least somewhat inferior to previous releases such as Ten and Vitalogy. But I love this album, and I love this song. For once, the song I love most is actually in my vocal range!
Okay, so that’s not entirely true. My first pick for a song to learn and play would have been “Do The Evolution.” For any of you familiar with that song, you should be sitting at your computer laughing at simply the notion of my attempting to sing a song like that! I understand my own limitations! 🙂 That being said, you should take the time to search on YouTube for “Pearl Jam Evolution” and watch the official music video; it’s simply amazing — a very cool use of animation to visualize the lyrics to a song.
Along with my acoustic cover song music video tonight, I also send a shout out to my girlfriend Nicole who is a big fan of this song. (I hope you like it!) As she is currently in possession of my CD copy of the album and my iPod is tied up with my Bob Dylan playlist (518 out of 622 tracks!), I had to rely on my iPhone to listen to “Wishlist” tonight as I wrote out the lyrics and chords. What a Mac nerd I am… but I love it. Speaking of Macs, if I don’t end up writing a full review of U2’s No Line on the Horizon, please allow me to go on record saying that “Unknown Caller” has to be the worst track on the album for a number of reasons. It’s only redeeming quality is that Bono makes lyrical references (“force quit and move to trash”) that bely his computer loyalties…
Although I have so much more I could say — about Pearl Jam’s re-release of Ten tomorrow, this song, other music, the fact that my dad and I just bought tickets to see Bruce Hornsby at the MGM Grand on Friday(!), life in general — I think this is enough for one night! As a final note, please allow me to point out that this is officially the tenth post in the Pearl Jam category here at the Laptop Sessions, rounding us off to an even ten just in time for the re-release of Ten for tomorrow’s New Music Tuesday, March 24th, 2009!
Welcome to Tremendous Tuesday! It’s so good, it’s “like a potential delay or closing tomorrow because of inclement weather” good.
Today I continue my romp of classic songs that have been covered more recently. Chances are you’ll think that Pearl Jam is the composer of the song “Last Kiss”, but if you do your research you’ll know it is a cover of a song that’s over 40 years old! It was actually written by Wayne Cochran, but he didn’t get a lot of publicity for the song. It took his song being covered a few times for the song to be successful.
This is among the easiest songs one can learn to play. I remember teaching this to one of my friends’ cousins at a guitar lesson. If you can play a G, Em, C, D progression, then congratulations you can wham out this song!
I had an incredibly busy day today, so i’m going to keep this brief. But short posts doesn’t mean a subpar video! The video itself came out well, and my voice “naturally” scratched during the higher notes, and it is really effective for this song that it happened. I think it is still an after effect of my voice still recovering from last week.
But Jim “Like an entire Christmas Village playing the same thing at once in their minature houses so it comes out peaceful and awesome” I have a hunch at what it could be (if he hasn’t played it already), but chances are it will be a song I haven’t heard yet.
Editor’s Note: Unfortunately, Jeff’s acoustic cover song music videos are no longer on YouTube, but we decided to keep his cover song blog posts up. We figured these music blog entries would be good for posterity’s sake and because Jeff always gave such insightful posts each Session. We hope to see Jeff’s impressive catalog of acoustic rock songs here on the Laptop Sessions cover songs and original music blog again in the future. But, for now, please make sure to check-out hundreds of other acoustic cover songs from all of your favorite bands here on the Laptop Sessions music blog!
Editor’s Note: Unfortunately, Jeff’s acoustic cover song music videos are no longer on YouTube, but we decided to keep his cover song blog posts up. We figured these music blog entries would be good for posterity’s sake and because Jeff always gave such insightful posts each Session. We hope to see Jeff’s impressive catalog of acoustic rock songs here on the Laptop Sessions cover songs and origianal music blog again in the future. But, for now, please make sure to check-out hundreds of other acoustic cover songs from all of your favorite bands here on the Laptop Sessions music blog!
Good evening! Welcome to your Friday installment of The Laptop Sessions. I hope you are ready to celebrate a three-day weekend, and plan on seeing family, friends, and perhaps enjoy a nice cookout or two in the process.
Meanwhile, I get to bring to you one of my favorite songs. It’s Pearl Jam tonight with a song from their first album Ten. Track #5 is Black from that album and that is the song I bring to you tonight.
It has a great background electric guitar and Eddie Vedder sings a wonderful vocal melody in the entire song. Vedder is known to go in between styles back and forth and this song showcases that talent of his. From the soft verses to the emotional outro of the song, I attempt to emulate what Eddie can do. I think I do a good job, but then again i’m no Eddie Vedder. I’ll let you be the judge of that.
Also, this song translates wonderfully to acoustic guitar, and I substitute a minor change in the guitar part at the end of the song instead of the vocal “do do doo doo do do dooo” that the recording has. And as with all songs that fade out, I picked the chord that sounded best to end on and went with that.
I want to thank all of you for visiting, commenting, rating, and subscribing. This is among the sessions I am most proud of.
Editor’s Note: Unfortunately, Jeff’s acoustic cover song music videos are no longer on YouTube, but we decided to keep his cover song blog posts up. We figured these music blog entries would be good for posterity’s sake and because Jeff always gave such insightful posts each Session. We hope to see Jeff’s impressive catalog of acoustic rock songs here on the Laptop Sessions cover songs and original music blog again in the future. But, for now, please make sure to check-out hundreds of other acoustic cover songs from all of your favorite bands here on the Laptop Sessions music blog!
Editor’s Note: Unfortunately, Jeff’s acoustic cover song music videos are no longer on YouTube, but we decided to keep his cover song blog posts up. We figured these music blog entries would be good for posterity’s sake and because Jeff always gave such insightful posts each Session. We hope to see Jeff’s impressive catalog of acoustic rock songs here on the Laptop Sessions cover songs and origianal music blog again in the future. But, for now, please make sure to check-out hundreds of other acoustic cover songs from all of your favorite bands here on the Laptop Sessions music blog!
Pearl Jam Acoustic Rock Cover Songs and Free mp3 Downloads
Among one of the most popular alternative rock acts of all time, Pearl Jam was founded in 1990 in Seattle, WA. Jeff Ament and Stone Gossard were the original pioneers of the band, but their chief draw is the unique vocals of Eddie Vedder. Pearl Jam is also well-known for their Ticketmaster boycott, and not recording music videos to go along with their radio singles. Vedder has an incredible range and can sing in multiple vocal styles. The band has a nearly uniform way of contributing to the songs they write – almost all songs have the entire band in the writing credits. They have released a total of 8 albums as of 2008, and their tour dates are continually sold out within a few short hours. Jeff has covered three songs from Pearl Jam – one from Vs., one from Ten, and one from Vitalogy. “I own only these three albums, so I know them the best. I’m confident that if I purchased their albums that came after Vitalogy, I’d be pleased as well”, says Jeff. Jeff is eager to convert some of their other well-known songs to acoustic, and has received positive reviews from fans on his covers.
