Light Years is a song by Pearl Jam, released on July 10, 2000, as the second and final single from the band’s sixth studio album, Binaural (2000). Featuring lyrics written by vocalist Eddie Vedder and music co-written by Vedder and guitarists Mike McCready and Stone Gossard. The song peaked at number 17 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks chart. The song was included on Pearl Jam‘s 2004 greatest hits album, rearviewmirror (Greatest Hits 1991–2003).
The song was re-worked from its original demo version titled “Puzzles & Games”, as the band felt the original version was too similar to the song “Given to Fly”. Vedder on the song:
“With “Light Years”, Mike McCready had written some music. We were excited about it for a while, but when we got down to recording it, it was too nice, too right there—it was a little too close to “Given to Fly”. We changed the tempos, and then one night Mike and I, after working on it all day and getting frustrated, just flipped it backwards, and in about 35 minutes it became “Light Years”, with words and everything. It still has a fairly contagious chorus and melody, but it’s just sideways enough to make me happy.“
McCready on the song:
It was originally kind of a different vibe to that song and it kind of sounded like a song I had written before so me and Eddie kind of sat down and jammed on it one day and just two guitars and out of playing for about an hour it turned into what it is now. And it’s kind of a cool, I think, melodic song and lyrically it’s pretty beautiful and I have my interpretation about what the song is about and I think everybody should get what they want to get out of it.
Bassist Jeff Ament on the song:
It sounded nothing like what it sounds like now. Mike had a couple of riffs, and Ed really sat down and tried to write to it. He initially had some problems, and one day he came in on his own and had some lyrics that were really heartfelt. He ended up completely rearranging the song. It got played a million different tempos and a million different angles on the drums. That was a hard song; probably more so on Matt’s end just because it took so long.
At the Pinkpop Festival in 2000, Vedder dedicated Light Years to Diane Muus from Sony Music, a friend of the band who died at the age of 33 in 1997. He said there are:
“Times you have got friends that don’t fuck up at all and are great people. And then you just lose them for some reason. They are off the planet and you never had a chance to say goodbye. I only mention this because there was a person we used to know here and that was Diane and ah, we never got a chance to say goodbye. This is goodbye. And if you’ve got good friends, love them while they’re here.”
Tracklist:
- Light Years
- Grievance (live)
- Soon Forget (live)
Pearl Jam
Eddie Vedder: lead vocals, rhythm guitar, ukulele; credited as “Jerome Turner” for album concept
Jeff Ament: bass guitar, upright bass, inside photography
Matt Cameron: drums
Stone Gossard: rhythm guitar
Mike McCready: lead guitar
