10 Bands That Made The Same Song Twice
4. Footsteps - Pearl Jam
When you look at the history of Pearl Jam, the timeline of the band forming starts to get a bit fuzzy. Formed out of the ashes of Mother Love Bone, the first iteration of the band originally began in Temple of the Dog, where almost every band member teamed up with Chris Cornell to pay tribute to Andy Wood. While Eddie Vedder would be present at a few of the sessions, Stone Gossard was also mixing and matching riffs where he could as well.
In the different demos that he sent to Eddie before he got the job, there was this spare acoustic track that was tied together with a dark guitar riff. Looking to sequence the songs as a story, Vedder eventually made a mini rock opera called MamaSon out of the demos, with the acoustic track turning into Footsteps and detailing the character's eventual execution after going on a killing spree.
It had a lot of potential...the only problem was that riff had already been taken. Digging deeper into the Temple of the Dog sessions, this riff had already been turned into a song for the project, as Chris Cornell turned it into the song Times of Trouble. This would mean it was ditched for Pearl Jam's first record, eventually ending up on the B-side to the single Jeremy. If you want the complete MamaSon experience though, you'll need to start at Alive, go right into Once, and then end things off on that menacing little riff.