Given to Fly

"Given to Fly" appeared on Pearl Jam's 2004 greatest hits collection, rearviewmirror (Greatest Hits 1991–2003), several years after it first reached radio. The song had been released on December 22, 1997, as the lead single from the band's fifth studio album, Yield, and went on to become that album's most popular single. It topped the US Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks chart for six weeks and peaked at number 21 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Guitarist Mike McCready wrote the music, while vocalist Eddie Vedder supplied the lyrics. McCready came up with the main riff on a snowy day in Seattle, when the streets shut down and he found himself stuck in his condo, unable to get his Volvo out of the driveway. That same day he also wrote the riff for "Faithfull". The main riff uses the DADGAD alternate tuning, and McCready described the song as a wave in an ocean, starting slow, growing larger, breaking, and coming down again. He acknowledged that the guitar part and vocal melody bore similarities to Led Zeppelin's "Going to California", saying it was probably some sort of rip-off, whether conscious or unconscious, since Zeppelin was an influence.

Drummer Jack Irons played a beat built around the toms, kept deliberately soft. Vedder imagined the lyrics as a 20-page children's book with a line and a picture on each page, calling it a fable about rising above criticism without becoming bitter. The single's B-side, "Leatherman", concerned a 19th-century vagabond of that name.