Songoftheday 2/17/21 - He floated back down 'cause he wanted to share, his key to the locks on the chains he saw everywhere...

 

 

"Given To Fly" - Pearl Jam

from the album Yield (1998)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #21 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 3

Today's song of the day comes from Pearl Jam, who had lasted the longest of the early 90s Seattle grunge rock movement, with their fourth studio album No Code becoming their third #1 record, and scored a top-40 pop hit with the lead single "Who You Are" in the summer of 1996. After touring in Europe behind that album (at the time they were fighting with Ticketmaster which stiffled American dates), the band returned a little more that a year later with their next opus, Yield. The lead single from the project, "Given To Fly", was written by lead singer Eddie Vedder and lead guitarist Mike McCready. It described escaping from binds and freeing oneself of the burdens of expectations (possibly from the relatively muted reception of their last album) and trying to spread that mantra. The sweeping production that starts off with the guitar riff that stands rather open but swells into the grand "chorus", if you will (the actual title of the song is only sung once here)...

 

"Given To Fly" became Pearl Jam's fourth single to reach the top-40 on Billboard magazine's official Hot 100 pop chart in January of 1998, those it was mostly with the help of hefty sales to its fanbase, and only spent three weeks in that level. On rock radio, though, the track was massive, topping the Mainstream Rock chart for six weeks, and spending ten weeks at #3 on their Alternative Rock format list. Internationally, the single reached the top ten in Finland (#5), Norway (#6), and Spain (#6). It also made the top-40 in the UK (#12), New Zealand (#12), Australia (#13), Belgium (#13F), Iceland (#16), Ireland (#18), Canada (#24), Sweden (#29), The Netherlands (#36), and Switzerland (#39). The Yield album, released in February of that year, came in at #2 on the Billboard 200 sales chart, going on to sell over a million copies.

The second track from the album promoted to radio was "In Hiding", which was a moderate hit at rock radio, reaching the top-20 on the Mainstream (#14) and Alternative (#13) rock lists, but missed the pop chart entirely. That was followed by "Wishlist", which returned them to pop stations, almost reaching the top-40 on the Hot 100 at #47, while hitting #6 on both the Mainstream and Alternative Rock charts. It also put Pearl Jam on the older-skewing Adult Top-40 format tally for the first time at #39. Lastly, the frenetic "Do The Evolution" was given their first music video (albeit an animated one) since "Jeremy" way back in 1992. The result earned them two Grammy nominations for Best Hard Rock Performance (losing to Robert Plant and Jimmy Page's "Most High") and Best Music Video (which went to Madonna for her "Ray Of Light" clip). The song also placed on the Alternative Rock chart at #33 and the Mainstream Rock list at #40. Also at the 1999 Grammys, Yield was up for Best Album Packaging, which also went to Madonna's Ray Of Light set. But by the time the promotion and touring for this album was done, original drummer Jack Irons would leave the band, to be replaced by fellow grunger Matt Cameron from Soundgarden.

(6/10)

(Click below to see the rest of the post)

Here's the band in concert in 1997 in California...

Up next, on tour in 2000...

and finally, on their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame in 2017, where they dedicated their performance of "Given To Fly" to actor Michael J Fox, who is fighting Parkinson's Disease...

Up tomorrow: Singer/songwriter one-ups Baskin Robbins.