“Light Years” by Pearl Jam

"Light Years" was the second and last single from Binaural, Pearl Jam's 2000 album, and it very nearly came out as a different song. Mike McCready's music first took shape as a demo called "Puzzles & Games," but when the band went to record it, it came out too nice and too close to "Given to Fly," so they tore it down and rebuilt it, with Eddie Vedder writing the words and sharing the music credit with McCready and Stone Gossard.

The remake glows rather than soars, three guitars shimmering over Jeff Ament's bass and Matt Cameron's drums, with Tchad Blake producing alongside the band and Brendan O'Brien handling the mix. It later earned its place on the rearviewmirror hits collection.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.