One of the more unusual Pearl Jam songs, "Bugs" features an accordion played by lead singer Eddie Vedder - it's as close to polka as the band's ever come. In Spin Magazine, December 1994, he explained: "Before I went in the studio, I was walking around some little thrift shop, I found an accordion. And I went in with the accordion and played something, and then spoke some gibberish over the top. I remember laughing and saying, 'That's the first single.'"
This song is thought to be about the media. But in a the same Spin Interview, Vedder explained: "I think that it's almost confidence that enables us to record 'Bugs' or confidence in our listeners that they can open up to something like that. Back then I had my mind on the business at hand, and I probably wouldn't have felt so free to take up two hours of studio time working on Eddie's wank-off accordion piece. For a long time after recording it, I was playing it for friends saying it was the best thing we'd ever done [laughs]. We just decided to do something that was fun to listen to and wasn't bombastic and wasn't everything that the band had become."
According to Pearl Jam's book Twenty, the song had a very literal inspiration. Vedder had a case of poison oak and was "itching out of my skin." "The song really is about bugs," he claimed.
See your Spotify stats (with number of plays and minutes listened) and discover new music.
Music data, artist images, album covers, and song previews are provided by Spotify. Spotify is a trademark of Spotify AB.