43 WORLD WIDE SUICIDE

Pearl Jam

Beginning life as a free digital track available from the band’s own website, World Wide Suicide, the spiky and frenetic first single from 2006’s Pearl Jam, racked up a whopping 150,000 downloads in just four days. Written from the perspective of a dead soldier’s family, it was one of three shots from the album fired at George W Bush’s White House. “It doesn’t sound slick or that we polished it. That’s the main thing, really, politics aside,” said guitarist Stone Gossard. “The melody is really strong. It sounds like AC/DC. Fuck, kick ass! I like it. It’s blowing up. The song just has energy in it. It has the intangibles.” SL From: Pearl Jam, 2006