Today is bittersweet. We got a beautiful deluxe edition of the Singles Soundtrack with a lot of previously unreleased Chris Cornell music on it just one day after his tragic suicide. Still, if you haven't yet, take a moment to enjoy the music.
Also, Rolling Stone released a video this week with members of Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, and Alice in Chains talking about the soundtrack. You can check that out below.
One of two songs contributed to the movie by Pearl Jam, "Breath" always felt like a part of the movie ... and a snapshot of the time in which the movie was made. The band had just acquired their new singer, Eddie Vedder, and bassist Jeff Ament had been working in the art department of the film. Three-fifths of Pearl Jam - then called Mookie Blaylock - even appeared in the movie as part of Citizen Dick, the fictitious band fronted by Cliff Poncier, played by Matt Dillion. The whole Seattle Music scene would soon explode, a surprise to us because the idea of Seattle being an important music mecca was initially a tongue-in-cheek joke as I wrote the script. But all the dreams of many of those struggling musicians would soon come true. Not just with the seismic arrival of Nirvana and "Smells Like Teen Spirit," but even earlier with one of the first real hits to emerge from Seattle since Heart and Jimi Hendrix years earlier - Alice in Chains' "Man in the Box."
STATE OF LOVE AND TRUST
Eddie Vedder read the script and sent me the handwritten lyrics to "State of Love and Trust" in a brown paper bag. The words and music were his comment on love and relationships, the tumult and the bliss, the weight and the responsibility of putting your heart on the line. It meant a lot to me then, and it means a lot to me now. Even hearing the first notes brings me right back to a special and very passionate time in all our lives.
SINGLES BLUES I
Always a weapon within Pearl Jam, Mike McCready here provides some funky blues, accompanied by Stone Gossard on percussion. Some of this was slated for usage in the deleted scenes involving Bridget Fonda's character Janet, and her love affair with the doctor memorably played by Bill Bullman. McCready would go on to collaborate often with us (Pearl Jam Twenty, We Bought a Zoo), as well as many other filmmakers. His side-project work as a composer is flourishing and it's exciting to include some of his earliest stuff here.
