Eddie Vedder has paid tribute to The Clash frontman, Joe Strummer in honour of what would’ve been the late punk legend's 70th birthday (August 21). 

Marking the occasion, the Pearl Jam singer has recorded a heartrending acoustic rendition of Joe Strummer & The Mescalero’s track Long Shadow, originally released on 2003’s Streetcore, which was release posthumously following Strummer’s passing in late 2002. 

The cover also arrived with a Lance Bangs-directed video that captures Vedder performing the song on an acoustic guitar beside a campfire, ending with him throwing his handwritten lyric sheets into the flames. “I just think that what Joe did with the Mescaleros and those records, and those songs, and those words, it was a very communal sound,” Vedder says at the end of the clip. “I think when you have a communal sound, the listener feels like they can be part of that community.”

Watch below.

Eddie Vedder | ‘Long Shadow’ [Joe Strummer Cover]

Vedder’s connection with Strummer runs deep. A chance meeting at a club in San Diego back in 1989 Strummer’s touring drummer and former Red Hot Chili Peppers member Jack Irons, passed along an instrumental demo tape made by members of Vedder Seattle band, Mother Love Bone. Vedder took only days to return the tape, adorned with his signature grung gravel vocal and, within a matter of days, Pearl Jam were born.

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