Watch Eddie Vedder Cover Joe Strummer’s ‘Long Shadow’
Eddie Vedder celebrates the communal spirit of Joe Strummer in a new video cover of "Long Shadow," a song the late Clash frontman originally recorded with the Mescaleros.
The fireside clip, released ahead of what would have been Strummer’s 70th birthday on Aug. 21, shows Vedder strumming an acoustic guitar outdoors. "I hear punks talk of anarchy; I hear hobos on the railroads / I hear mutterings on the chain-gangs," he sings on the track, originally part of 2003's Streetcore. Later, Vedder ends with, "somewhere down the road, in my soul / There’s always rock 'n' roll."
After the performance, Vedder praises the Mescaleros, with whom Strummer recorded three albums including the posthumous Streetcore prior to his death in 2002.
"I just think that what Joe did with the Mescaleros and those records and those songs and those words — it’s a very communal, communal sound," the Pearl Jam frontman says, in the video below. "The listener feels that they can just be part of that community. I can only imagine that he facilitated thousands and thousands of connections."
Dark Horse Records is also premiering one of Strummer’s final recordings in conjunction with the Vedder cover. The previously unreleased "Fantastic," which you can also watch below, features vocals tracked in December 2002 at Wales’ Rockfield Studios, weeks after the final Mescaleros show at Liverpool University.
"Fantastic" appears on the upcoming compilation Joe Strummer 002: The Mescaleros Years, which documents his work with the post-Clash group. The package is out Sept. 16 on multiple formats, including a four compact-disc edition with a 72-page book and seven-LP set with a 32-page book.
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