As you may have guessed from the blog title, I count Pearl Jam as one of my all-time favourite bands. As an impressionable teenager, it is Pearl Jam that first introduced me to the fully immersive musical experience. I felt Eddie Vedder’s joy and his pain. Mike McCready’s lead guitar made me hold my breath. Jeff Ament’s bass guitar made my soul shiver. Stone Goddard’s rhythm guitar kept me dancing to the band’s first album Ten for hours at a time. The language here is purposely overwrought because when you are sixteen, every note means something, every lyric speaks to you and you fall in crush with the good-looking, tortured lead singer so hard it makes you feel like you will never know real love. I wore out my MTV Unplugged VHS tape during my first year of university (thank god for YouTube). In fact, that tape along with the 1993 VMAs looked after me during those scary first freshman weeks away from my steady boyfriend, friends and family. I went on to enjoy their subsequent albums and though my love of their new music is not as fervent as it was, no other band can give me a thrill that I get when I hear the opening bars of State of Love and Trust.

So here is song that inspired the blog title and the band that made me a sometimes rock chick.