Every baseball fan has imagined it: bottom of the ninth, two outs, and the loudspeakers start blasting your walk-up song. Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder is no different, and the longtime Chicago Cubs backer recently revealed that the music he would like played as he stepped up to the plate would be Fugazi’s “Give Me the Cure”.
Vedder indulged his athletic fantasies in an appearance on the podcast The Artist and the Athlete, hosted by broadcaster Lindsay Czarniak. Alongside Chicago’s All-Star first baseman Anthony Rizzo, the songwriter told stories of taking drunken batting practice with Cubs’ President of Baseball Operations Theo Epstein and meeting a “baby-faced” Rizzo back when he was still a minor league prospect. When Czarniak asked about Vedder’s theoretical walk-up music, the rock star didn’t hesitate.
“This song called ‘Give Me the Cure’ by Fugazi,” he said, referencing a track that appeared on the post-punk band’s debut 1987 EP Fugazi. “There’s certain songs that — just the sound of them is like a drug. So that’s what I would use. One of those songs that affects me like a drug.”
Elsewhere, he spoke about how Cubs Hall of Famer Ernie Banks commanded him to write the song that would eventually become “All the Way”, as well as the first record he ever bought (Michael Jackson’s Got to Be There), and the pre-show superstition of calling “17 minutes” started by his tour manager. Check it out below.
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In December, Vedder released his solo EP Matter of Time, and last month he performed at the 34th Tibet House benefit concert.
