Following the finale of Friends, I wrote this entry bashing yet another unfunny episode of the most overrated show in history. I mentioned there was a minute of the show I did like and that was when I heard the familiar opening chords to Pearl Jam's "Yellow Ledbetter". I was surprised to hear a Pearl Jam composition on a television show.
I noticed last night that a Billboard article on the inclusion of "Yellow Ledbetter" in that episode had been picked up by several news services, including MSNBC, Yahoo! Launch and Reuters. Here's a bit of what they had to say about it.
The music heard as Jennifer Aniston's character Rachel was about to board a plane to Paris in last week's final episode of "Friends" might have sounded familiar, but its usage was an unfamiliar situation for the artist in question. In fact, the snippet of Pearl Jam's "Yellow Ledbetter" used in the scene marked the first time the veteran Seattle rock act had ever licensed its songs for a television show.
According to a group spokesperson, it was simply a matter of the show's producers asking permission, which Pearl Jam granted. Although never included on an album until last year's rarities collection "Lost Dogs," "Yellow Ledbetter" has taken on a life of its own since its release as a B-side in 1992. The cut wound up appearing on seven Billboard charts in the mid-'90s, despite never being worked to radio.
It's a stunningly beautiful song and the perfect closer to a Pearl Jam concert. I heard them close with it in August 1998 and that concert remains to this day my favourite concert of all time.
