Light Years

This song is dedicated to Diane Muus from Sony Music, a friend of the band who died at the age of 33 in 1997. At a concert in 2000, Eddie Vedder said: "There are times you have got friends that don't f--k up at all and are great people. And then you just lose them for some reason. They are off the planet and you never had a chance to say goodbye. I only mention this because there was a person we used to know here and that was Diane, and we never got a chance to say goodbye. This is goodbye. And if you've got good friends, love them while they're here."

This song changed a great deal from where it started. Initially, the title was "Puzzles And Games," and it had a quiet verse and exploding chorus. Pearl Jam bass player Jeff Ament explained their book Twenty: "Mike [guitarist Mike McCready] had a couple of riffs, and Ed really sat down and tried to write to it. He initially had some problems, and one day he came in on his own and had some lyrics that were really heartfelt. He ended up completely rearranging the song. It got played a million different tempos and a million different angles on the drums."

The song is part of Pearl Jam's sixth album, Binaural. By this time, Eddie Vedder was ceding more of the songwriting to his bandmates. "Light Years" is credited to Vedder along with their guitarists, Stone Gossard and Mike McCready.