"Hard Sun" is a 1989 song written and performed by Canadian singer-songwriter Gordon Peterson, known as Indio. It was the first single released off the artist's sole album Big Harvest, and reached #10 in Canada.
In 1990, "Hard Sun" was honored by SOCAN as one of the ten most popular Canadian songs of the previous year, alongside songs by Ian Thomas, Alannah Myles, One to One, Frozen Ghost, Blue Rodeo, Bruce Cockburn, Candi, Glass Tiger and Sheriff.
"Hard Sun" gained a lot of attention when Eddie Vedder, the frontman of American rock band Pearl Jam, covered the song for the Into the Wild Soundtrack. Corin Tucker provided backing vocals. In 2007, Sean Penn approached Eddie Vedder about creating a soundtrack for his upcoming film Into the Wild. Vedder put together a compilation of songs that included some instrumental and vocal experimentations, some originals and two covers â "Society" by Jerry Hannan and Indio's "Hard Sun". The latter was the album's first single, and it was a hit, reaching #13 on the Modern Rock charts and #23 in Canada. Vedder's version of "Hard Sun" was released as a CD single with the radio edit of the song as the first track, and the full album version as the second track.
Eddie Vedder was sued by Indio for "eroding" the integrity of the composition by altering some of the song's original lyrics. Also the Universal Music company was sued, because it released "Hard Sun" on the soundtrack album without Indio's approval.
The suit against Vedder was dismissed, while a simultaneous suit against Universal was dropped after Universal and Peterson reached an undisclosed settlement.