The band, then called Mookie Blaylock, recorded 'Alive' during a demo session at London Bridge studio in January 1991. Upon hearing the tape, the band invited Vedder to come to Seattle and he was asked to join the band.

'Alive' was the first song for which Vedder recorded vocals. He listened to the tape shortly before going surfing, where lyrics came to him. The tape made its way into the hands of vocalist Eddie Vedder, who was working as a security guard for a petroleum company in San Diego, California at the time. 'Dollar Short' was one of five tracks compiled onto a tape called Stone Gossard Demos '91 that Gossard, Ament, and McCready circulated in the hopes of finding a singer and drummer for the group. After Wood died of a heroin overdose, Gossard and his bandmate Jeff Ament started playing with guitarist Mike McCready with the hope of starting a new band. According to Gossard in an interview for Pearl Jam's VH1 Storytellers special, Mother Love Bone frontman Andrew Wood had even sung on it.

Guitarist Stone Gossard wrote the music for the song, which he titled 'Dollar Short', in 1990 when he was still a member of Mother Love Bone. In 2006, Rolling Stone described the band as having “spent much of the past decade deliberately tearing apart their own fame.” One of the key bands of the grunge movement in the early 1990s, over the course of the band’s career, its members became noted for their refusal to adhere to traditional music industry practices, including refusing to make music videos, giving interviews and engaging in a much-publicized boycott of Ticketmaster.

Pearl jam even flow demo