"Glorified G" is a song by the American rock

Rock music

Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...

 band Pearl Jam

Pearl Jam

Pearl Jam is an American rock band that formed in Seattle, Washington, in 1990. Since its inception, the band's line-up has included Eddie Vedder , Jeff Ament , Stone Gossard , and Mike McCready...

. The song is the fourth track on the band's second studio album, Vs. (1993). Although credited to all members of Pearl Jam, it features lyrics written by vocalist Eddie Vedder

Eddie Vedder

Eddie Vedder is an American musician and singer-songwriter who is best known for being the lead singer and one of three guitarists of the alternative rock band Pearl Jam. He is widely considered a cultural icon of alternative rock.He is also involved in soundtrack work and contributes to albums...

 and music primarily written by guitarists Stone Gossard

Stone Gossard

Stone Carpenter Gossard is an American musician who serves as the rhythm and lead guitarist for the American rock band Pearl Jam. Along with Jeff Ament, Mike McCready, and Eddie Vedder, he is one of the founding members of Pearl Jam...

 and Mike McCready

Mike McCready

Michael David McCready is an American musician who serves as the lead guitarist for the American rock band Pearl Jam. Along with Jeff Ament, Stone Gossard, Dave Krusen, and Eddie Vedder, he is one of the founding members of Pearl Jam...

. Despite the lack of a commercial single release, the song managed to reach number 39 on the Billboard

Billboard (magazine)

Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...

Mainstream Rock Tracks chart.

Origin and recording

Bassist Jeff Ament

Jeff Ament

Jeffrey Allen Ament is an American musician who serves as the bassist for the American rock band Pearl Jam. Along with Stone Gossard, Mike McCready, and Eddie Vedder, he is one of the founding members of Pearl Jam...

 plays upright bass

Double bass

The double bass, also called the string bass, upright bass, standup bass or contrabass, is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra, with strings usually tuned to E1, A1, D2 and G2...

 on "Glorified G". Guitarist Stone Gossard

Stone Gossard

Stone Carpenter Gossard is an American musician who serves as the rhythm and lead guitarist for the American rock band Pearl Jam. Along with Jeff Ament, Mike McCready, and Eddie Vedder, he is one of the founding members of Pearl Jam...

 on the song:

"Glorified G" was one that went through a series of changes, and barely held together the whole time. We all knew there were melodies and riffs in it we liked. But even listening to the song right up to the mixing stage I was going, "Does this work at all?!" Here was Mike playing a very up, country guitar line while I'm playing this choppy down riff on the opposite end of the groove spectrum. Meanwhile, Jeff's got this totally other bass line going that's not really steady, and he's going off in a melodic direction, too. So there's not really anybody holding it down, and Dave's got to decide either to play it more the country way or play it the funky way. There was this precarious balance, and then suddenly the bridge comes in from out of the blue, which, if Eddie doesn't sing it just right, sounds sort of foreign. Finally, it never goes back to the chorus at the end, it turns into something else.

Guitarist Mike McCready

Mike McCready

Michael David McCready is an American musician who serves as the lead guitarist for the American rock band Pearl Jam. Along with Jeff Ament, Stone Gossard, Dave Krusen, and Eddie Vedder, he is one of the founding members of Pearl Jam...

 on the song:

I wrote part of that one. I had this Gretsch Country Gentleman and I started jamming on this little thing in D (sings riff); the riff just came out of that. Stone came up with his weird part. There are all these strange, disjointed parts that kind of turned into a song. Stone's doing something weird, Jeff's doing something weird and offbeat, but for some reason it works, I really don't know why.

Composition

The music for "Glorified G" is made up of a combination of a country

Country music

Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...

-influenced guitar riff written by McCready and a discordant guitar riff written by Gossard. Gossard said, "Its trying to be country and funky at the same time, which is really bizarre."

Lyrics

"Glorified G" is an anti-gun song with lyrics mocking gun enthusiasts. The song was inspired by an incident in which drummer Dave Abbruzzese

Dave Abbruzzese

David James Abbruzzese is an American musician who was the drummer for the American rock band Pearl Jam from 1991 to 1994. He replaced drummer Matt Chamberlain in 1991, shortly before the release of the band's debut album, Ten...

 told the band he had just bought two guns which sparked a conversation about guns within the band. Vocalist Eddie Vedder

Eddie Vedder

Eddie Vedder is an American musician and singer-songwriter who is best known for being the lead singer and one of three guitarists of the alternative rock band Pearl Jam. He is widely considered a cultural icon of alternative rock.He is also involved in soundtrack work and contributes to albums...

 about "Glorified G":

I didn't actually write that song...I was at a band rehearsal and just started writing down these things the guys were talking about. The band were having this conversation and I just took down the dialogue. One of the band members had just bought a gun. It was the drummer, actually. Ask him about it.

Abbruzzese about "Glorified G":

I told our manager that I just bought a coupla guns and he told Jeff, and at rehearsal Jeff kinda blurted it out. And Eddie went, 'Whaaaat, you bought a GUN?' And I said, 'In fact, I bought two,' which ended up as the opening line of the song. I think it's fair to say Eddie was pretty outraged.

Reception

Without being released as a single, "Glorified G" peaked at number 39 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks chart in 1994.

Live performances

"Glorified G" was first performed live at the band's June 16, 1993 concert in Missoula

Missoula, Montana

Missoula is a city located in western Montana and is the county seat of Missoula County. The 2010 Census put the population of Missoula at 66,788 and the population of Missoula County at 109,299. Missoula is the principal city of the Missoula Metropolitan Area...

, Montana

Montana

Montana is a state in the Western United States. The western third of Montana contains numerous mountain ranges. Smaller, "island ranges" are found in the central third of the state, for a total of 77 named ranges of the Rocky Mountains. This geographical fact is reflected in the state's name,...

 at the University of Montana-Missoula's University Theatre. The song was played live from its debut in 1993 up until 1996 when it was dropped from set lists. After the band's November 17, 1996 concert in Budapest

Budapest

Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...

, Hungary

Hungary

Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...

 at the Sports Hall, the song was not performed live for a period of over six years. "Glorified G" finally made a return appearance at the band's April 11, 2003 concert in West Palm Beach

West Palm Beach, Florida

West Palm Beach, is a city located on the Atlantic coast in southeastern Florida and is the most populous city in and county seat of Palm Beach County, the third most populous county in Florida with a 2010 population of 1,320,134. The city is also the oldest incorporated municipality in South Florida...

, Florida

Florida

Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...

 at the Sound Advice Amphitheatre

Cruzan Amphitheatre

Cruzan Amphitheatre is a 19,000-seat open-air music venue in West Palm Beach, Florida. The facility, owned by the South Florida Fairgrounds, is a modern amphitheatre used primarily for concerts and other performances...

. The song has since returned to Pearl Jam set lists. Live performances of "Glorified G" can be found on the "Dissident

Dissident (song)

"Dissident" is a song by the American rock band Pearl Jam, released in 1994 as the fourth single from the band's second studio album, Vs. . The song peaked at number three on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks chart...

"/Live in Atlanta box set and various official bootlegs

Pearl Jam Official Bootlegs

The Pearl Jam "Official" Bootlegs are a large, continually growing series of live albums by the American alternative rock band Pearl Jam. Pearl Jam noted the desire of fans to own a copy of the shows they attended and the popularity of bootleg recordings...

.

Chart positions

Chart (1994)	Position
US Mainstream Rock Tracks	39