Songfacts®:

• This was written by the Pearl Jam vocalist for Sean Penn's movie Into the Wild. It was inspired by the true story of graduate Christopher McCandless, who, in 1990 at the age of 22, left behind a life of comfort to test himself against the wilds of nature. "Guaranteed" was one of 9 original tracks and 2 cover songs written by Vedder for Into The Wild. Sean Penn's screenplay for the movie was written to include song accompaniment almost as an additional character in the movie. He explained in the press release: "I had structured my screenplay to be dependent on song accompaniment for both visceral and storytelling components. It was during the shooting of the film that Eddie Vedder's voice as singer and songwriter came to mind as the right voice for this movie."
• This won the Best Original Song honor at the 2008 Golden Globe awards. It was Vedder's first career Golden Globe win. He had previously been nominated as the writer of "Man of the Hour," a Pearl Jam song from the Tim Burton film Big Fish, which lost out at the 2003 awards to Annie Lennox' "Into The West."
• Vedder told Uncut magazine September 2009 that when writing the music for Into The Wild, the soundtrack for the 1971 movie Harold and Maude was a particular inspiration. He explained: "When I was 12, I remember seeing the movie, Harold and Maude, a film that is accompanied by several Cat Stevens songs. Cat's voice represents the interior voice of the character throughout the movie, and he does it absolutely perfectly. It's a perfect synergy between film and music, and it really inspired me to try writing for film. Take the final scene, where it looks like Harold is going to drive off the cliff, with the rain hitting the windshield, and you know how he feels. Suddenly they play "Trouble" by Cat Stevens, and it's utterly overwhelming, heartbreaking. So seeing it work there made me think I could give it a go."