Eddie Vedder is the lead singer of the world famous alternative band, Pearl Jam and native of Evanston, IL. Even though he spends much of personal time at his homes on the west coast, he also happens to be a life-long Chicago Bulls & Chicago Cubs fan. The Pearl Jam song "Black, Red, Yellow" is about the Chicago Bulls championship teams. Now he's written a song about the team he loves even more: The Cubs.
Vedder gets to Wrigley Field to catch a Cubs game as much as possible. He has sung the seventh inning stretch classic, "Take Me Out To The Ballgame" at the Friendly Confines of Wrigley four times so far. Before the 2007 Lollapalooza here in town, where Pearl Jam was the headliner, Eddie Vedder threw out the ceremonial first pitch. At one of his many visits to see the Cubs, he was able to meet and spend time with "Mr. Cub" himself, Ernie Banks. Mr. Banks told him that he should write a song for the Cubs. (I'm surprised Ernie didn't say, "Let's write two!") Eddie took the Hall of Famer's advice and penned the acoustic ditty "All The Way" for the Cubs.
This summer, at his two-night solo concert stand at Chicago's Auditorium Theatre, Eddie performed the song for the first time publicly. The song was recorded and has been playing on WXRT & WTMX this past week. The radio play here in town has generated a great deal of buzz in the International press.
The song is a fairly simple guitar & vocal love song to the team, very similar to Steve Goodman's and John Prine's past folk songs about the beloved Northsiders. The song has lines like: "Our heroes wear pinstripes / pinstripes in blue / give us a chance to feel like heroes, too" and "And when the day comes for that last winning run/And I'm crying and covered with beer/I look to the sky and know I was right today/Someday we'll go all the way." It's clearly a long-time fan's desire to see a World Series Championship come to a team that has been without one for 100 years this year, set to music.
You can hear the song on this YouTube clip (with some photos added by a third party):
The song itself is now available as a digital download for only $0.99 from the Pearl Jam website, which you can get to from this link here:
PearlJam.com - All The Way download
According to the website, the song may be sold as a CD single or possibly even a vinyl 45 in the near future.
The Chicago Cubs playing in the postseason just become a reality today, as they officially clinched the division. Will they be able to make to the big game finally this year? The odds look good so far. Eddie Vedder's simple song may be the one heard a lot more in the next month, if so. Better get used to it!
I knew Steve Bartman; Steve Bartman was a friend of mine.
Singer... you're no Steve Bartman.
(paraphrasing Lloyd Bentsen)
