Spin the Black Circle
| "Spin the Black Circle" | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
||||||||||
| Single by Pearl Jam | ||||||||||
| from the album Vitalogy | ||||||||||
| B-side | "Tremor Christ" | |||||||||
| Released | 8 November 1994 | |||||||||
| Format | CD single, Cassette, vinyl | |||||||||
| Recorded | January–February 1994 at Bad Animals Studio, Seattle, Washington | |||||||||
| Length | 2:48 | |||||||||
| Label | Epic | |||||||||
| Writer(s) | Eddie Vedder, Stone Gossard | |||||||||
| Producer(s) | Brendan O'Brien, Pearl Jam | |||||||||
| Pearl Jam singles chronology | ||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
"Spin the Black Circle" is a song by the American rock band Pearl Jam, released on November 8, 1994 as the first single from the band's third studio album, Vitalogy (1994). Although credited to all members of Pearl Jam, it features lyrics written by vocalist Eddie Vedder and music primarily written by guitarist Stone Gossard. The song peaked at number 11 on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart and at number 18 on the Billboard Hot 100. It charted at number 10 in the UK Singles Chart, giving them their only top ten hit in that country.
The song was included on Pearl Jam's 2004 greatest hits album, rearviewmirror (Greatest Hits 1991–2003).
Guitarist Stone Gossard had originally written the guitar riff for "Spin the Black Circle" as slower, however vocalist Eddie Vedder asked him to speed it up. Vedder on the song:
I remember wanting everything to be faster...Stone gave me a tape with this riff [hums it at slow speed]. I had a speed control on my machine. I speeded it up, came back and said, "Can we do it this way?"
Guitarist Mike McCready on the song:
That's me trying to do Johnny Thunders leads. I actually overdubbed those leads, but when I do it live, that riff is so hectic and frantic, I have to be warmed up or it sounds really shitty.
Bassist Jeff Ament has admitted that he was unhappy at the time with the punk rock direction that the song took. He said that "when we wrote 'Spin the Black Circle'...I was like, 'Ugh!'. I can play the entire Dead Kennedys back catalogue! I didn't really want to make music like that at that time."
"Spin the Black Circle" begins with one guitar playing fast power chords, and then the second guitar kicks in and Vedder begins singing aggressively through the rest of the song. The main guitar riff for the song is reminiscent of the one for Hüsker Dü's "Beyond the Threshold" from the 1984 album, Zen Arcade.
...
Wikipedia