Ten (Pearl Jam) Easter Egg - Where "Ten" Came From

I heard that "Versus" came from the whole "Five Against One" thing ("Versus" being the Five Vs. One concept -- five band members against the world). Is this right?

Yes, the orginial title to Vs. was five against one, and then the album was actually unnamed for a short period of time, I think the fist 10,000 copies sold had no name on the cover????

This is not an egg, just a interesting tidbit.

Also as an interesting little tidbit The band members all have their hands up 10 hands

the original title for "Vs." was "Five Against One" but Pearl Jam's record company, as well as their producer and manager, thought that the title was too risky and didn't want it to make legal trouble, so Pearl Jam used "Vs." instead.

I have heard that Vs. was originally Man vs. Animal. Hence the animal on the cover. And yes the first copy has an orange case.

to Teleman027, they don't all have their hands up...look on the cover and you'll see that Jeff Ament only has one hand up...so why isn't the album named 9? I'm almost certain that the reason they got their name up is because of Mookie Blaylock's jersey # though. Sir Moonshine

Animal contains the lyrics "one, two, three four, five against one, five, five, five against one", implying rape.

On the inside cover of Ten, they aren't holding up 10 hands, there are 10 fingers showing, check it out.

I can state definitively that the first SOME number of at least the tape-version of VS didn't have an album name on it...because when I was little I used to own that tape, and I always thought it was so cool, especially when I heard the story... -El Juno

I had heard on the radio that the album title Ten came from the fact that 10 is Eddie Vedder's lucky number, having appeared significantly throughout his life (e.g., when he was 10 years old his voice changed from a TENor to a bass). If that IS true, maybe the basketball player's number is one example of the number popping up.

"This is not an egg, just a interesting tidbit." Apparently you don't know what an 'easter egg' is. It was put there on purpose, so therefore it IS an egg...

I believe 5 against 1 is a masturbation reference -- five fingers on one p*nis. Hence, vs. -- man fighting his own inner beast, sensual/sexual desires. Oh, by the way, speculating, as I am doing, on someone's artwork, does not necessarilly make something true. Only the artist knows for sure (usually even they don't know exactly); speculation proves foolish without validation.