timeless melody ↝ eddie vedder

𝐚 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐮𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐰𝐨 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐬 - 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐨𝐧𝐞

Seattle, WA
Oct. 1990

The sound of the phone ringing jolted me out of concentration, making me nearly drop the film tank that I was holding.

Shit.

I quickly find somewhere safe to put it
down before rushing out of the darkroom where photographs are developed, and into the main part of my work, out by the till. I barely get to the phone in time before it stops ringing.

"Photo Warehouse, this is Juno speaking, how can I help you?"

A poor impersonation of a woman's voice responded enthusiastically.

"Hi this is Jenny from 31 Flavours, if you can name thirty one flavours in thirty one seconds we'll give you thirty one thousand dollars. Ready? GO!"

I let out a frustrated heavy sigh, and close my eyes and tilt my head back so that my face is pointed towards the ceiling. With one hand holding the phone, I use my free hand to reach up and rub my eyes tiredly before opening them again and looking back down, towards where the phone stand is on the desk.

"Har-har-har, very funny. I'm hanging up now, don't call again." I say in a monotone.

Just as I'm taking the phone away from my ear to place it back on the stand, I hear a familiar voice start yelling to get my attention.

"No! No no Juno don't hang up it's Stone! I have to tell you something don't hang up don't hang up!"

I bring the phone back up to my ear. "Jesus, calm down Steno, I'm not gonna hang up."

"Okay good. Hey I have some news that you'll be very pleased to hear."

"Okay, are you gonna tell me what it is, or are you just gonna keep telling me that there's something you have to tell me?"

"I'm getting to it, jeez. So, like, two weeks ago, I talked to Jack on the phone, and he told me that he gave our tape that we sent to him to his friend in San Diego, who apparently sings and is looking for a new band cause his last one wasn't really going anywhere."

I interrupted him, "What band was he in?"

"Bad stereo or something, I can't remember. Anyway, that's not all I had to say, let me finish so that I can get the good part."

"My apologies, continue."

"Thank you. So, Eddie ended up recording vo-"

I interrupted him again, confused, "Hold on, who's Eddie?"

"Jacks friend from San Diego, Jesus. Can I finish now?" He was starting to get exasperated.

"Yes, you may finish."

"Yeah cool thanks. So, as I was saying, Eddie wrote some lyrics, recorded vocals over the shit that was already on the tape and mailed it back to us, and I just got the package."

He was right. I am pleased to hear this news.

When Andy died, it hit all of us pretty hard. It was a shock to the system. Chris once told me that it took away whatever innocence we had. And he was right.

None of us really saw it coming. Sure, we knew that he was using, but we didn't really know the full extent of his addiction, the severity of it. We were under the impression that things were looking up. He put us under that impression. I don't blame him for it though, addiction is a disease, it's more complicated than just being a 'junky'.

For a long time, a lot of us were kicking ourselves in the ass for not noticing. It took a while, but we realised that, realistically, there wasn't much we could've done if we had noticed, and eventually we stopped blaming ourselves. Doesn't make it any less painful.

It seemed to hit Chris and the Love Bone guys the hardest, though.

Stone is one of my best friends. I've known him since his Green River days. He was one of the first people I met when I moved to Seattle, and we just clicked. He knows me annoyingly well, and I know him just as well.

So seeing him not wanting to go anywhere near anything remotely musical almost hurt just as much as Andy's death. I wanted to offer him (and everyone else, of course) support, but it was tough when I was grieving too.

Slowly but surely, Stone and Jeff starting letting music back into their lives. How could they not? It was more than just their jobs, those guys live and breathe and bleed music. It was only a matter of time before they found their way back to it, they just had to do it on their own accord.

They started listening to music again, and leaned back into making it after a while. For a bit they only made it individually, but soon they had that itch that only a band could scratch. They hooked up with Mike McCready, and Matt from Soundgarden and started jamming and writing again. In, like, two weeks, they had something like twelve totally new songs. It was exciting, and it still is.

They made a tape with three of the new songs on it, and started looking for a singer. At first it was.. difficult, to say the least. Almost all of the people who auditioned were trying too hard to sound like Andy. Aside from the fact that nobody could sound like Andy, the guys wanted to go in a new direction. It was a new band, they had new experiences, new influences, new inspiration.

Eventually they sent the tape down to our friend Jack Irons in California, and I guess he passed it on to his friend Eddie. And here we are.

"Have you listened to it yet? Is it any good? Can you make me a copy? What are the lyrics like? Are they cheesy? Fuck, I really hope they're not cheesy."

"Yes I've listened to it, yes, it is very good, I'll absolutely make you a copy, and the lyrics are.." He stammered for a moment before trying to find the right words.

"Are what? The lyrics are what?" He was taking forever to reply and I felt oddly left in the dark.

"They're incredible Juno. They're not cheesy, at all. They're honest, and deep, and just.."

"Incredible?" I couldn't have held back my smile if I wanted to.

"Incredible."

I could hear that Stone was smiling, too.

"He's it for us, Junebug, I just know it."