"[3] Drummer Dave Krusen said, "I was pretty green back then and 'Even Flow' suffered from too much fluctuation."

[9] The recorded version of the song actually sounds slightly sharper than D major, with everything tuned up—accidentally or otherwise—around one quarter of a step.

Stone (Gossard, Pearl Jam guitarist) wrote the riff and song; I think it's a D tuning.

[10]The vocal line that appears in the main verse begins with a very prominent tritone interval.

At Pearl Jam's March 28, 1994, concert at the Bayfront Amphitheater in Miami, Vedder introduced the song by saying, "I thought I'd throw in a bit of street education while you still have an open mind.

"[12] At the May 12, 2008, show in Toronto, Vedder stated that the song was written under the Space Needle in Seattle.

At a subsequent show in Seattle on August 8, 2018, Vedder revealed that the song was inspired by a homeless Vietnam War veteran (also named Eddie) whom he befriended while working on the band's first album.

Chris True of AllMusic called "Even Flow" "the somewhat less ballady more swaggering follow up to the breakout single 'Alive'."

[18] According to Nielsen Music's year-end report for 2019, "Even Flow" was the fifth most-played song of the decade spanning the years 2010 to 2019 on mainstream rock radio with 132,000 spins.

[21] Pearl Jam originally hired director Rocky Schenck to film a music video for "Even Flow".

On January 31, 1992, on their way to England to begin a European tour, the band members came to Los Angeles to film the video.

He had arranged a nighttime shoot at an old, closed facility, brought in different wildlife, and set up his lights among the cages and in the trees.

Schenck's shoot was considered a waste of time and money by the band; it also damaged Abbruzzese's wrists significantly.

[23] The video consists of performance footage of the band filmed during a January 17, 1992 show at the Moore Theatre in Seattle.

[23] The video shows Vedder climbing the theatre, then jumping down between fans at the concert, and ending with McCready throwing his guitar towards the camera.

The footage used in the video is actually spliced from different songs: for instance Gossard and McCready each play two different guitars, Vedder wears a hat at some point and the theatre climb actually occurred during "Porch".

[24] Taft's presence at the Moore Theatre show, and the fact that he had filmed sufficient footage to compile into a music video, proved to be a break for the band.