Eddie Vedder in Pop Culture

With his recent appearance in front of President and First Lady Obama and honoree Bruce Springsteen, Eddie Vedder again spread his musical and cultural wings at the 39th Annual Kennedy Center honors.

It’s been a long time since Pearl Jam was the hot name in pop culture, but Ed has had his share of mentions as well.  It was a recent bottle of fine beer that reminded me that Ed’s name is still relevant. The list below is probably nowhere near exhaustive, so tell us about your findings in the comments if there’s one we missed.

Magic Hat #9

Not much else

A good friend of mine recently emailed me. “Check your snail mail”, he said “I’m going to send you something Pearl Jam related that I know you don’t have”. Now, I’ve collected lots of Pearl Jam stuff, and thanks to the old Pearl Jam Discography and now PJCollectors.com, I’ve seen almost anything. So it was dubious that my friend was going to send me something that would surprise me.

Well, I got a 5″x7″ padded envelope a few days later, and it seemed light as a feather. Inside wasn’t a CD or sticker, but a small piece of foam wrapped in tape. Now completely intrigued, I cut the tape to reveal a bottle cap from the fabulous microbrew Magic Hat No. 9. Familiar on top, the underside of the cap contained a phrase:

What could be better,
than a beer with Eddie Vedder

Searching online, it seems this saying has been on Magic Hat beers for the last couple of years, but it was news to me. Take one down, pass it around, another Pearl Jam collectible on the wall.

Local H

Does the line from the bottlecap above look familiar? It should.  Illinois rock duo Local H wrote a song “Eddie Vedder” in 1996 with a similar chorus:

If I was Eddie Vedder,
Would you like me any better?

Maybe it’s just that “Vedder” rhymes easily with “better”, but the ease of the chorus rolling off their tongue allowed Local H to even release the track as a single, making it up to #38 on the modern rock charts!

Weird Al’s in Trouble because …

Call him what you will, but Weird Al Yankovic has re-written tons of lyrics and pulled it off with tremendous success. Take a look at him performing “My Baby’s In Love With Eddie Vedder” from 1999. The full lyrics are here, but to keep the apropos lyrics visible, check out Weird Al’s clever double-word rhyme with “Vedder”

Once she was mine, but now I better just forget her
‘Cause my baby’s in love with Eddie Vedder

The Rugburns

Thanks to Sean for pointing out that the now defunct Rugburns recorded a song “Me and Eddie Vedder“, written by Steve Poltz off of 1994’s Morning Wood.  To quote Wikipedia, the song “was a raucous meditation on the glorious possibilities of overdosing in a hotel room alongside Eddie Vedder. The experience concludes with 8-track players blaring the Houses of the Holy album as Vedder and Poltz are laid to rest.” The Vedder-rhyming lyric?

In a room with Eddie Vedder
We could both die together

What else ya got?

Drop a comment below and let us know where you’ve seen “Eddie Vedder” in pop culture. This list was centric to Pearl Jam, but check to see if it’s there first.