Pearl Jam’s frontman Eddie Vedder once dedicated “Better Man” to the bastard that married his momma. And despite clearly depicting the sad tale of an abusive relationship, some people still believe the catchy tune depicts a love story. Apparently, for some reason, people refuse to listen beyond the line ‘can’t find a better man’. Time to destroy illusions and tell the real story behind Pearl Jam’s 1994 release “Better Man”.
The Meaning of Better Man
Pearl Jam’s “Better Man” is about a woman trapped in an abusive relationship. The woman desires to tell her man she’s going to leave him, but fails to bring up the courage to actually do so. Instead, she lies and tells him she can’t find a better man. A statement that explains the somewhat contradictory song title.
Eddie Vedder wrote the song based on personal experiences. During VH1 Storytellers in 2006, he said: “It was based on observations and things that I’ve witnessed in regard to abusive relationships. And how apparently it was much more tricky to end them than I would’ve thought growing up.”
The woman in “Better Man” refers to Eddie Vedder’s mother. The abusive man refers to his stepfather, Peter Mueller. In his youth, Vedder actually thought Mueller was his real father. Vedder discovered the truth when his mother revealed to him Mueller was his stepfather, and his biological father had died. A sad story that inspired Pearl Jam’s major hit “Alive”.
Eddie Vedder was somewhat relieved when he found out Peter Mueller wasn’t his biological father. Mainly because the two weren’t on good terms with each other. In an interview with Howard Stern, Vedder said: “When my mom told me that this guy wasn’t my father and was somebody else. You know, it was a shock, but I was so grateful in a way. I was like, Oh, f*ck. Thank god.”
The Story Behind the Song
Eddie Vedder wrote “Better Man” in his teens. He later joked he wrote the song when he should’ve graduated, but hadn’t. Vedder intitially performed the song with his first band “Bad Radio”.
Since Vedder wrote the song in his pre-Pearl-Jam days, it would be logical to assume “Better Man” appears on Pearl Jam’s debut album “Ten”. But it does not, mainly because guitarist Stone Gossard finished most of “Ten’s” music before Eddie Vedder joined the band. Pearl Jam thought about including “Better Man” on their second album “Vs.”, but deemed the song too mainstream. The song eventually appeared on the band’s third studio album “Vitalogy”.
Pearl Jam initially opposed to recording “Better Man” for “Vitalogy” too. At the time, the band’s fame was sky-high, which was a heavy burden for the band members. As a result, the band withdrew from commercial activities. Pearl Jam thought “Better Man” was too commercial and desired to give the song to a Greenpeace benefit record. But Producer Brendan O’Brien aborted that idea.
O’Brien later recalled in Spin magazine: There’s a great song we recorded for Vs., “Better Man,” which ended up on Vitalogy. One of the first rehearsals we did they played it and I said “Man, that song’s a hit.” Eddie just went “uhhh”. I immediately knew I’d just said the wrong thing. We cut it once for Vs., he wanted to give it away to this Greenpeace benefit record, the idea was that the band was going to play and some other singer was going to sing it. I remember saying to the engineer, Nick DiDia, “This is one of their best songs and they’re going to give it away! Can’t happen!” And we went to record it and I’m not going to say we didn’t try very hard, but it didn’t end up sounding very good. I may have even sabotaged that version but I won’t admit to that. It took us to the next record, recording it two more times, before he became comfortable with it because it was such a blatantly great pop song .”
The Song’s Legacy
“Better Man” wasn’t released as a single. Nonetheless, the song became Vitalogy’s most popular. The song spent 8 weeks atop the US Mainstream Rock charts and received major radio airplay.
“Better Man” is a staple during Pearl Jam live shows, having it played over 500 times. Despite Pearl Jam’s efforts to commercially dim “Better Man”, it couldn’t prevent the song from becoming an absolute fan favorite.
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