Even Flow features lyrics written by Eddie Vedder and music written by guitarist Stone Gossard. It was released in 1992 as the second single from the band’s debut album, Ten (1991). The song peaked at number three on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks chart. Bassist Jeff Ament said:
“I knew it was a great song all along, and I felt that it was the best song that we got the worst take of on the first record. There were a hundred takes on that song, and we just never nailed it.”
Drummer Dave Krusen said:
“I was pretty green back then and Even Flow suffered from too much fluctuation.” He added that “it was really tough for me. I don’t know why. Not sure why we didn’t use that one from the demo as well, but I know it felt better.”
Guitarist Mike McCready stated:
“We did ‘Even Flow’ about 50, 70 times. I swear to God it was a nightmare. We played that thing over and over until we hated each other. I still don’t think Stone is satisfied with how it came out.”
An alternate version of the song was recorded with drummer Dave Abbruzzese in 1992 while the band was recording songs for the soundtrack for the 1992 film, Singles. This version was used for the music video, and was used in single releases in the United Kingdom. This version can also be found on Pearl Jam‘s 2004 greatest hits album, rearviewmirror (Greatest Hits 1991–2003).
Tracklist:
- Even Flow
- Dirty Frank
- Oceans
Pearl Jam originally hired director Rocky Schenck to film a music video for Even Flow. On January 31, 1992, on their way to England to begin a European tour, the band members came to Los Angeles to film the video. The concept for the video was based on an idea by Gossard. Schenck filmed Pearl Jam in a zoo setting. He had arranged a nighttime shoot at an old, closed facility, brought in different wildlife, and set up his lights among the cages and in the trees. Along with the animal footage, the members of Pearl Jam were filmed individually and as a band, standing on the side of a cliff and air jamming. The shoot took hours, and the band was not pleased with the end result. Schenck‘s shoot was considered a waste of time and money by the band; it also damaged Abbruzzese‘s wrists significantly.
The original music video for Even Flow was ultimately replaced by a performance clip directed by Josh Taft, who had previously directed the Alive music video for the band, and who later directed the music video for Oceans. The video consists of performance footage of the band filmed during a January 17, 1992 show at the Moore Theatre in Seattle. The video shows Vedder climbing the theatre, then jumping down between fans at the concert, and ending with McCready throwing his guitar towards the camera. Taft was filming that night not with his occupation as a director, but as a friend of Gossard‘s. At one point during the show, Vedder shouted indignantly:
“This is not a TV studio, Josh! Turn those lights out, it’s a fucking rock concert!”. Taft left this incident in his final cut, but MTV clipped it out when it aired the video.
The footage used in the video is actually spliced from different songs: for instance Gossard and McCready each play two different guitars, Vedder wears a hat at some point and the theatre climb actually occurred during Porch. Taft‘s presence at the Moore Theatre show, and the fact that he had filmed sufficient footage to compile into a music video, proved to be a break for the band. Otherwise, with Epic ready to provide MTV with an Even Flow video and Schenck‘s version already completed, Pearl Jam would have had little choice but to go with it, and the band members unanimously despised Schenck‘s version when they saw the final edit. The alternate studio recording of Even Flow, which was recorded in 1992 with Abbruzzese, was used for the video as the band felt it synched up well with the live footage. The video was released in April 1992. The full January 17, 1992 show was released in 2013 as an audio download, Seattle, WA 17 January 1992.
