Eddie Vedder, soundtrack cover king.

And I thought Diamond Dave was the only one to cover a song an album. Eddie Vedder coming up on the outside, neck and neck with now three different covers for three different movies. There’s two Sean Penn flicks with him, I Am Sam singing The Beatles’ ‘You’ve Got To Hide You Love Away’ and the upcoming Into The Wild featuring a cover of Indio’s Hard Sun. You also have him on the recent Adam Sandlar flick Reign Over Me with the Who’s Love, Reign o’er Me. (Yes it’s with Pearl jam, but Vedder is the band. Just ask Abbruzzese.)

Much as I hate the cohabitation of score and soundtrack–Field of Dreams interrupted with the opening riff to China Grove is just wrong–I think you need to include the original version of a song if you’re going to do it. Having said that, and as much as I prefer the original, Vedder’s Hard Sun works because it’s sung in a more individualistic way than Indio’s group dynamic, making it fit better with the solo journey theme in this film. (On another note, I generally hate co-opting snippets of songs just to reinforce a brand’s key selling point, but being a big fan of Indio’s Big Harvest CD from way back, I’m at least glad this song got attention.)

Amazes me though that no energy company or beer ever used it before because the chorus is absolutely perfect for it, and even a few of the other Rusted Roots-type songs from the album. There’s also no telling what effect it would have had on the career of the band, especially when you consider other bands at the same stage getting attention. (The Verve before Nike used them, Hummer using Filter’s The One Way or The Postal Service and Apple.)

(Image found here.)

Tags: Eddie Vedder, Sean Penn, The Verve, Indio, soundtracks, I Am Sam,