Perhaps, It's Time for Lost Dogs II ...

Lost Dogs was released in 2003, halfway in their now 30 year career. It collected the outtakes, b-sides. It was their ‘odds & sodds’ record. Some fan favorites were collected on a PJ record for the first time. Favorites like: ‘Alone’, ‘Yellow Ledbetter’ or ‘Hard to Imagine’. It also contained about 12 songs that were released for the first time ever. Some of these grew to new fan favorites. ‘All night’, ‘Hold On’ or ‘Sad’ have proven to be a highlight in any live show. Some fans would even say that this collection of bastard songs is their favorite Pearl Jam release. Almost all of these songs remain a rare sight in any Pearl Jam show. However we can’t underestimate the importance of these rare sightings to most of the loyal fans. Hearing a song like ‘Education’ or ‘Strangest tribe’ will be the highlight for both the fan who went to his 25th show as well as the newer fan.


Upon release in 2003 some of their rarities didn’t even make the cut. Probably because they had too many. This could have been released as a triple disc instead a double! Since then even more stand-alone tracks and fanclubsingles have been released. And it’s most likely that the band has recorded more songs that have yet to be released. Some of these songs leaked to the internet in inferior quality. Some of these even got played live several times.

Perhaps it’s time for Lost Dogs II! Pearl Jam should once more open their vault

Hereby we present almost everything we know about the unreleased Pearl Jam tracks. No speculations, just observations and facts. All presented in chronological order. 

 

1990-1991

Most of the outtakes from this period are included on Lost Dogs. There are a couple Ten era instrumentals that never made it into a song: Untitled (Gossard demos), Folk D (Gossard demos) or instrumental #2 (Mookie demo). But apart from those instrumentals most of the early Pearl Jam tracks are released by now. And yet there are still some tracks in the vaults. Even Dave Krusen thinks there are still songs to be released. You can listen to his interview hereIt's something he even confirmed on his Instagram:


 

 

1992-1994

This was a productive era for the band. And most seems to have been released. At least, that is what we have thought.  In 2011 Pearl Jam released the book (and movie) PJ20 and on page 283 of the PJ20 book, the background photo is of master tapes and shows the songs 'Black Eye' and 'Eastern Beatles':


 Some interesting information on Black Eye in the 1994 Rolling Stone article written by Cameron Crowe:

Pearl Jam is the band’s turf statement, a personal declaration of the importance of music over idolatry. But the burden of Pearl Jam’s popularity has fallen most solidly on Vedder, who spent much of his off-season wondering about the effects of being in such a high-profile band. Vedder had – uncharacteristically – even gotten into a barroom fight defending the band. (In a Waits-like voice, he offers a snippet of an unrecorded song that he has written about it: “Gave myself a black eye/To show off just how I was feeling.”) 


There is also a 2001 Billboard article that contains the following snippet:


Does Pearl Jam ever go back and revisit unfinished ideas from previous writing sessions?
Jeff Ament: Probably not as much as we should. I definitely have amazing memories of some songs off "Vs." I know there's three totally finished amazing songs that don't have any vocals or lyrics and melodies. There's a couple of things from "No Code" too.

Maybe Jeff was referring here to Eastern Beatles, Cready Stomp and possibly Black Eye. Or maybe to a song called ‘I Won’t’. Because at the exhibition over at the PJ20 festival they even showed a lyric sheet for an unreleased song from this era called ‘I Won’t’. The post-it note even said ‘a song to be released someday….’.


So the song ‘I’Wont’ is surely not an instrumental. And based on that interview with Cameron Crowe ‘Black Eye’ could also have lyrics. CreadyStomp was released on the Vs. deluxe edition as an instrumental. ‘Eastern Beatles’ could be both. Since none of this was released we can’t tell.  

But we do know that a dozen cassette tapes belonging to Dave Abbruzzese found their way to E-bay. They were bought by a fan but not shared yet. All that we know is that it confirms all the above mentioned songs like ‘Black Eye’, ‘I’Wont’ or ‘Eastern Beatles’. As well as a recorded cover ‘Owner of the Lonely Heart’. Amongst jams and other instrumentals on those tapes one can also find four acoustic sketches or unfinished songs simply titled acoustic #1 to #4. Acoustic #1 was released on the PJ20 soundtrack!


More proof on 'Owner of the lonely heart' was found on the following still. It's from a September 1991 sessions with Dave A. Chinese was also tried.



The PJ20 book also had a passage about their first recording session with Brendan O’Brien. They demoed some Vs tracks and recorded covers of Sonic Reducer and Baba O’Riley. The first was released on a fanclub single (but not on Lost Dogs) the latter remains unreleased….


 

1995-2002

Another fruitful period for the band. Many of the outtakes were released as b-sides or fanclubsingles. Most would eventually end up on Lost Dogs. But not all, Leatherman or Happy When Im Crying for instance. At one time Eddie mentioned there is also a song called Leatherman II. 

 That night I was inspired to write not one but two songs about the man (the second, not so creatively titled “Leatherman II” was never released…definitely the more somber of the two).

Besides Leatherman II also a song called Weatherman is proven by this still. 


In 1995 they played their famed non-ticketmaster tour. They did debut some tracks that would later end up on the Merkinball EP or the No Code album. However, one track ‘Falling Down’ was never released. A live version of this song was released on a fanclubsingle instead. A studio version must exist somewhere…


 

In the pre-production process for Lost Dogs the following disc was going around:



Anything in between’ was a great (although incomplete) outtake from Binaural. And ‘Sunburn’ a lovely tune with Stone Gossard on vocals (No Code era). At the same time an haunting spoken-word track leaked to the internet (possible also considered for Lost Dogs). Fans would name this I’m still here. Another track that was played live is 'Last Soldier'. Once again this was only released as a live performance on a fanclubsingle.




2003-2004

Lost Dogs was released in November. Maybe it was a contractual obligation. And yes, maybe they did some questionable re-recordings or edits. But overall, the record was a welcome gift to the fans. Some fan favorites were collected on a PJ record for the first time. Favorites like: ‘Alone’, ‘Yellow Ledbetter’ or ‘Hard to Imagine’. It also contained about 12 songs that were released for the first time ever. Some of these grew to new fan favorites. ‘All Night’, ‘Sad’, ‘Education’, ‘Hold On, or ‘Fatal’ are just some examples of great songs that were left of their intended album. The weird thing about ‘Lost Dogs’ is that it’s not complete. The following tracks were not included upon its release:  State of Love and Trust, Breath, I got Shit, Long Road, Angel, Leatherman, Last Soldier*, Out of my mind*, Happy When Im Crying, Falling Down*, Sunburn, Brother, Just A Girl, I’m Still here. 


Or the following covers: Wishing well, I’ve got a Feeling, Touch me I’m Sick, Sonic Reducer, Crazy Mary.

It just shows how many great tracks this band had released. And how many they had kept in the vault. Make you wonder what’s still in the vault after the release of Lost Dogs.

And what about that artwork?? In the Lost Dogs artwork, you can read titles like: Smoke ring, The Big word, The Morning Song (confirmed as: In Hiding), No cursing, Your Face (confirmed as: All Those yesterdays) . However, these songs could be incomplete instrumentals, or just renamed later.

In 2004 their recording contract with Sony ended. They got signed for 7 records and 2 compilation records. They ended their record by releasing their second compilation record and first hits package ‘Rearviewmirror 1991-2003’. Included were some stand-alone singles like: ‘State of Love and Trust, Breath, I Got Shit and Man of the Hour.

2005-2008

In a 2007 interview with TFT, Danny Clinch (director of 2007 concert movie ‘Immagine in cornice’) said the following about the 2006 S/T (Avocado) sessions:

JR: Pearl Jam is the first record that hasn't had a B-side so we've wondered where are some of these extra cuts.
DC: And there's more to that story that I'm not going to tell you.

One unreleased named 'Off the Earth' track from the S/T sessions have been played live since around 2010.  Jeff Ament opened up about those sessions in an early 2005 interview

So far, the band's written a total of 25 songs, but the final track listing will have around a dozen songs — and the decision about which tracks make the final cut largely rests with "Ed, because he's writing 95 percent of the lyrics," Ament said. But the bassist did reveal some potential song names: "Marker," "Crapshoot Rapture," "Worldwide Suicide," "Cold Confession," "2X4" and "Severed Hand." Ament singled out two other tracks as his current favorites. "One is called 'Of the Earth,' that's a song Ed wrote that is kind of a cross between early Peter Gabriel/ Genesis and Sleater-Kinney with, like, the Who's Live at Leeds or something.


Like Binaural and Riot Act before it S/T seemed to have many outtakes. A pre-production disc leaked to the internet that includes demos by members, sketches and some full fledged songs: Cold Confession, Let it ride, 10 billion years (Stone on vocals)  and 2x4. That last one missed vocals. 


We know that Off the Earth was tried again for Backspacer. And that there are several outtakes being confirmed by both Jeff and Mike in interviews:

In one interview Jeff said that they recorded some incredible rock songs that did not fit on Backspacer very well and he was hopeful that they will enter the studio again early next year to do some final recording/mixing on those tracks aiming at an new release within a year.

The famous EP that never materialized. Similar words were already spoken by Mike in other interviews

BM: I noticed you kept the songs very short, very direct, kind of garage-y. Were you sort of reining in the tendencies to make them a little bit more like that?

MM: I think we didn’t initially know that we were reining them in. We had about seventeen ideas going into this project, seventeen to twenty. And when we were at about eleven pretty much finished, Brendan (O’Brien, producer) and Ed sat down and said, “Hey, this looks like a really good record.” Stone (Gossard, guitarist) had been talking about wanting to have a record that was shorter, more concise and I think we achieved that. That being said, we still have other songs that are out there that are from this session that we may do something with in about six months.

Where they shelved a Who cover 'Baba O'Riley' in 1992. They finally released a cover from Eddie's favorite band on their 2006 fanclubsingle: Love Reign O'er Me.  Two more original Pearl Jam songs appeared on fanclubsingles these years: Santa God & Santa Cruz


 

2009-2013  

More time to look back again. Like they did in 2003 and 2004 with the release of Lost Dogs and ‘Rearviewmirror - Greatest Hits’. Deluxe remastered editions for Ten, Vs and Vitalogy were released. The Ten release finally saw Just A Girl and Brother get a proper release. Although check that Rarities Unreleased Cuts for even better versions of those songs! The Ten deluxe edition also included fun outtakes like ‘2000 Miles Blues’ and ‘Evil Little Goat’. The Vs and Vitalogy deluxe remasters had very few bonus tracks. But the instrumental ‘CreadyStomp’ was now released!

  

After these remastered editions the band would also look back at its career with a movie, book, exhibition and festival PJ20. The ‘Ten’ outtake ‘Chinese’ was heard in the movie and played on PJ’s own Sirius channel but strangely was not included on the movie soundtrack. Dave Abbruzzese comments about ‘Chinese’ on his Facebook: 


2013: At an Amsterdam listening party for Lightning Bolt Brendan O'Brien was present. During the Q&A a reporter asked about 'Off the Earth' (which was played live since 2010).  O'Brien said it was not tried again during the Lightning Bolt sessions, but confirmed it was tried for Backspacer.  He said there were not many outtakes this time around. Maybe only one or two tracks. He was probably thinking about Olé

 

During these years only one original song was released on the fanclubsingles. 'Turning Myst' remains the only PJ song that featured Mike McCready on vocals. One other studio recording was released on the fanclubsingles. 'Better Things' a song from the Kinks was nicely covered by the band.

 

2014-2021

They started recording 'Gigaton'  with Brendan O'Brien in the beginning of 2017. 'Can't Deny Me' was released from those sessions. And then three years later Gigaton was released with Josh Evans producing. ‘Can’t deny me was not on Gigaton and has already begun it’s life as a Pearl Jam rarity. Another studio track released from those early sessions was 'Again Today'.


When Josh Evans (producer Gigaton) was asked about outtakes:

They’re always working on something. It’s hard to say, because it’s not really done until it’s out. There are all kinds of things sitting on hard drives — from pieces of ideas to something one of the guys might consider a finished song. As far as mixing the record, these were the only 12 songs we mixed.

On October 2nd 2020 Pearl Jam released a new track and Gigaton outtake called ‘Get it Back’. On Instagram Matt said it was written in 2018. Making it the first outtake being released in years.


At a recent Q&A with fans over at Reddit:

One of the most asked question from fans was about Lost Dogs 2. Mike McCready made the following answer on Lost Dogs 2:

Gigaton is its own record. I’d love to record more music in this time of pandemic but its important that we are all taking measures to be safe. Good Idea about Lost Dogs 2 Ill bet we have the music for that.

I’m sure you do Mike!


In an interview with Guitarworld once again Mike mentioned unreleased Pearl Jam music!

“And Pearl Jam, we hopefully will be touring in Europe in the summer and maybe in the States before that. With Omicron, who knows what’s going to go on? I hope we can release some music, because we have a lot of music that we haven’t put out.


CONCLUSION

So to sum it all up. The band looked back at their career twice. In 2003-2004 they released Lost Dogs and a greatest hits record. And in 2009-2011 they released some deluxe remasters and a movie. It is 2021 and they have just released and amazing new record, their first in almost seven years.  It is time to look back once more. And opening the vault for Lost Dogs 2 would be the most welcome way!

 

The following tracks were not compiled on Lost Dogs:

Angel, Leatherman, Last Soldier*, Out of my mind*, Happy When I’m Crying, Falling Down*, Sunburn^ Chinese, Brother, Just A Girl, I’m Still here^,  Puzzles and Games^, Anything in Between(instr.)^, Wishing well~, I’ve got a Feeling~, Touch me I’m Sick~, Sonic Reducer~, Crazy Mary~.

Released/played/leaked since 2003:

 

Get it Back, Olé, Can’t Deny Me, Cold Confession^, Let it Ride^, Of the Earth*, 2x4(instr.), 10 billion years, Santa Cruz, Santa God, Turning Myst, Better Things~, Love Reign O'me~, Again Today~, CreadyStomp

 

Original songs that are still in the vaults. But have been proven to exist, even though we do not know if it’s finished song.

Eastern Beatles, Black Eye, I Won’t, Baba O’Riley~, Owner of the Lonely Heart~, Leatherman II#,

On some sites you can find PJ’s recording sessions history. Some song titles can be found on those lists but they are mostly rumored and could be false since we don’t have sources. We do have sources for song titles like:

The Big word, The Morning Song (confirmed as: In Hiding), No cursing, Your Face (confirmed as: ‘all those yesterdays), Smoke ring, Fallen (Falling Down??).


That’s an impressive list. And who knows what else they have left in those vaults.  It’s really time for a Lost Dogs II release. And this time around it can be even more than a double disc!

 

* = played live

^ = leaked

# = Mentioned

~ = Cover