Pearl Jam has shared a new song called “Quick Escape” that chronicles an environmental apocalypse while also blasting Donald Trump. The track will appear on the band’s upcoming album, Gigaton, which arrives this Friday (March 27th).
“Quick Escape” features singer Eddie Vedder spinning a sci-fi story about a devastated Earth that ends with humanity taking a bitter one-way flight to start life again on Mars. At one point Vedder proclaims, “The lengths we had to go to then/To find a place Trump hadn’t f**ked up yet.”
Vedder has told us before that he finds it hard but necessary to balance politics and music: “Well, you don't like to balance it at all. I'd rather just be an entertainer, but it just seems too important to back down and feel like, 'Well, maybe I shouldn't get into this territory because I want to remain an artist and I don't want to confuse the people that listen to us or don't want to turn them off because we're talking about politics here.' It's like you have to act right now. You just have to.”
To accompany the new song, Pearl Jam also unveiled a video game that allows players to pilot a spacecraft as one of the members of Pearl Jam and battle a horde of alien ships.