A Rare Version of Pearl Jam's "Corduroy"

It's no secret that I love Pearl Jam, having become a fan sometime in late 1992, and particularly by the spring of 1993.

For years, I wanted to see them live. In the spring of 1994, I even spent a night with friends that I had back then on the side of a street in Manhattan, hoping to get stand by tickets for Saturday Night Live with some friends of mine back then. We got the tickets, but we did not get in, as everybody showed up, which meant that, to my knowledge, not a single person with Stand By tickets got in. Obviously, it was disappointing.

I really tried to see them, tried to get tickets to the Paramount Theater show at Madison Square Garden, but did not get them. I was even contemplating going up to Boston to see them, but the guy I was going to go with had second thoughts, and it was a no go.

Eventually, of course, I saw them, but it took a couple of years. The first time was at Randall's Island in 1996, the second night, on September 29th. It was the first anniversary for my then girlfriend, and later wife (now ex-wife), but she did not have tickets (and was not a big fan). But she was understanding.

It was a great show, and for years afterwards, it stood as their longest ever show. It was regarded by many as one of their very best.

But it was the first of many. I would see them again, over and over again. Certainly, I made up for not having seen them earlier on, back in the early to mid-nineties.

One song that they seemed to play at almost every concert, and which, frankly, I got a bit sick of hearing was Corduroy. Even now, I usually will turn it off if it comes on the radio, or skip it if I am listening to a live show.

However, I recently ran into one entirely different version of it, and found it interesting. It is an acoustic version, and somehow, everything about the song sounds radically different. it has a different feel, a different sound, and yet, in some strange ways, you can definitely hear the resemblance, so to speak.

It is an acoustic version from the Bridge School concert back in either 1995 or 1996 - I read different dates from different people, and have not myself researched more thoroughly just yet. 

This seemed like something worth sharing, particularly for any other Pearl Jam fans out there who might run into this, so here it is: