Considered one of Pearl Jam’s most beautifully-realized ballads, “Future Days” has had an unimaginable afterlife. The tune initially proved its price because the introspective denouement to the Seattle rockers’ Billboard 200-topping tenth album Lightning Bolt in 2013, however extra not too long ago its basic standing has been underlined by its distinguished position within the second season of HBO’s award-winning post-apocalyptic drama collection The Final Of Us.
With hindsight, “Future Days” set itself aside proper from the beginning. The tune was impressed by the lack of Eddie Vedder’s pal and fellow musician Dennis Flemion, a founding member of Milwaukee alt-rock act the Frogs. Flemion’s unintended dying by drowning in July 2012 hit Vedder laborious and he laid his emotions naked in “Future Days”: a reflective acoustic ballad which opens with the poignant line “If I ever were to lose you, I’d surely lose myself.”
Previous to its official launch on Lightning Bolt, Pearl Jam debuted “Future Days” reside at a present at Chicago’s Wrigley Area in July 2013 and the viewers response instantly prompt the tune had one thing particular.
“I think it’ll be one of those [songs] that people cry to, hopefully get a little closer to their loved ones when they hear it,” guitarist Mike McCready instructed Billboard when Lightning Bolt was launched. “I was feeling that on that night [at Wrigley Field]. I was feeling it with the whole crowd.”
Additionally feeling the emotional pull of “Future Days” was Neil Druckmann, the author/director of The Final Of Us online game franchise. Druckmann was so impressed by the tune that within the 2020 online game The Final Of Us Half II, the character Joel performs an acoustic guitar cowl of “Future Days” for Ellie. Shortly after this, Eddie Vedder carried out a solo rendition of the tune on the 2020 Sport Awards – an occasion at which The Final Of Us Half II gained a whopping eight awards.
Pearl Jam’s music has been inextricably linked with The Final Of Us ever since. “Left Behind” (from 2002’s Riot Act) featured within the seventh episode of The Final Of Us’ first season on HBO in 2023, whereas the present’s second collection premiered on April 13, 2025, with an episode titled “Future Days.”
Reprising the plotline from the unique online game, this episode featured Joel (performed on display by Pedro Pascal) educating Ellie (Bella Ramsey) play “Future Days” on an acoustic guitar. Nevertheless, when Ellie makes an attempt to play the tune after Joel’s dying in a later episode, she is unable to take action. It reminds her an excessive amount of of Joel. Although mild and evocative, the tune is steeped in loss – and in the end that’s probably the most troublesome of all human feelings to course of.
“I really appreciate the way [“Future Days”] was utilized in The Final Of Us: Half II, particularly bringing Joel and Ellie collectively, connecting by way of music,” Eddie Vedder stated in an interview with Consequence. “I thought it was cool too that it made you perhaps want to pick up a guitar yourself and write a song for your loved one.”
Purchase Pearl Jam’s “Future Days” on vinyl now.
