Songfacts®:

• After successfully working together on frontman Eddie Vedder's 2022 album Earthling, producer Andrew Watt was drafted back into duty for Pearl Jam's 12th album, Dark Matter. The band's first recording sessions for Dark Matter took place in April 2021 in the basement studio of the producer's Beverly Hills house. "Scared Of Fear" was one of two tracks that came out of their first day together after guitarist Stone Gossard played them an idea.
  
  "Stone had a great riff," bassist Jeff Ament told Mojo magazine. "It was just getting in a circle and throwing things out: 'Let's do this.' Within five minutes of having the bones of the arrangement, Ed came up with the crux of the lyrics."
• The song is a time machine, transporting listeners back to Pearl Jam's grunge heyday while simultaneously feeling fresh and relevant. Vedder's raw and emotional vocals explore themes of endangered joys and communion that could be about love, friendship, or the old Seattle.
• "Scared Of Fear" opens Dark Matter. In the intro before verse one there is a crack of a pool cue breaking the table. The sound was made by Vedder's friend Sean Penn and recorded by the singer on his phone.
• The album's vaguely unsettling ambient opening echoes the "Master/Slave" intro and outros on Ten.
  
  "Jeff and Andrew came up with that," Stone Gossard told Spin. "We wanted to open the album with 'Scared of Fear,' but that would have been a dead start to set the table. So, we built this little intro, and I'm sure Andrew was excited about having something that harkened back to Ten a little bit."