The waiting drove me mad. You're finally here and I'm a mess. That’s a lyric from Pearl Jam’s Corduroy, inspired by Eddie Vedder’s famously worn thrift-store jacket. But today, we’re not talking about 90s grunge fashion—or are we?

In surf speak, “corduroy” is pure poetry: a series of dreamy, evenly spaced swell lines rolling toward shore like velvet ribs from a high vantage point. In this episode, we unpack what causes those mesmerizing corduroy lines, why they signal great surf, and how distant storms thousands of miles away gift us the cleanest waves on Earth.

Also: did you know Eddie Vedder surfs? Of course he does.