Pearl Jam Writing Credits by Album

[digster]

It's hard to really compare songwriting in this band, since besides Eddie everyone is purposefully writing with enough space for a vital piece of the puzzle to be entered later. They know that Ed's voice and lyric is going to add a different shade or color to the song and probably write with that in mind. It's not like the liner notes next to the song are in any way really indicative of how that song was created and who is responsible for it's creation. Mine, assuming I read his sarcasm right, made a point wondering why anyone would want Stone and Jeff writing more when they're responsible for stuff like Big Wave or Supersonic. Well, I think if you asked people a big problem they'd have with those songs would be Eddie's melodies and lyrics. So it's clear that it just doesn't work to say that since Stone's got the credit for Supersonic, all it's failures and successes rest on him (this goes both ways, of course; Eddie may save a bland piece of music writing or the band could falter in the arrangement of one of Eddie's music/lyric creations).

It sometimes seems like people want to turn the band members into competing sports teams, with your allegiance with one player or another. I think that's the wrong way to go about it; the songwriting in the group is not that segregated, and what they do with the initial demos, particularly how they arrange them, goes a long way. Their methodology seems to be to give the music credit to whoever brings in the demo. If that's how they want to do it, fine, but it's not a process you can really gleam much knowledge from. Personally, I think they should just have done what they did on Vs./Vitalogy - music by Pearl Jam, lyrics by Vedder (or whoever)...it just avoids these overtly competitive things coming up in bands (and fanbases, for that matter).

Really, the only time you could compare songwriting to songwriting in the band is in the Yield/Binaural period, where the band purposefully brought completed material, with lyrics, to the table along with Eddie's work. I think in those instances their work clearly helped improve the quality of those records, but that doesn't necessarily mean that's always how they should do it.

[stip]

It's hard to really compare songwriting in this band, since besides Eddie everyone is purposefully writing with enough space for a vital piece of the puzzle to be entered later. They know that Ed's voice and lyric is going to add a different shade or color to the song and probably write with that in mind. It's not like the liner notes next to the song are in any way really indicative of how that song was created and who is responsible for it's creation. Mine, assuming I read his sarcasm right, made a point wondering why anyone would want Stone and Jeff writing more when they're responsible for stuff like Big Wave or Supersonic. Well, I think if you asked people a big problem they'd have with those songs would be Eddie's melodies and lyrics. So it's clear that it just doesn't work to say that since Stone's got the credit for Supersonic, all it's failures and successes rest on him (this goes both ways, of course; Eddie may save a bland piece of music writing or the band could falter in the arrangement of one of Eddie's music/lyric creations).

It sometimes seems like people want to turn the band members into competing sports teams, with your allegiance with one player or another. I think that's the wrong way to go about it; the songwriting in the group is not that segregated, and what they do with the initial demos, particularly how they arrange them, goes a long way. Their methodology seems to be to give the music credit to whoever brings in the demo. If that's how they want to do it, fine, but it's not a process you can really gleam much knowledge from. Personally, I think they should just have done what they did on Vs./Vitalogy - music by Pearl Jam, lyrics by Vedder (or whoever)...it just avoids these overtly competitive things coming up in bands (and fanbases, for that matter).

Really, the only time you could compare songwriting to songwriting in the band is in the Yield/Binaural period, where the band purposefully brought completed material, with lyrics, to the table along with Eddie's work. I think in those instances their work clearly helped improve the quality of those records, but that doesn't necessarily mean that's always how they should do it.

all of this was a really good post, and the bolded part in particular is something worth being reminded of. I tend to do exactly what you say, and I shouldn't

[Mine]

Fair point regarding 'Sad' and possibly 'Insignificance', but I would call Habit a 'fast' song, although not quite punk fast. Also, yeah, maybe you could put any one of the members' songs into those categories, but (for example) Matt's songs include the more quirky time signature changes and accents, and Stone's songs tend to be more groovy mid-tempo a lot of the time. Not always, sure, but Ed's songs are more easily called 'folky' or 'punky' generally I think.

How does that exactly make a song better? The emphasis on this is fairly recent too. You can probably find a bunch of videos on youtube of the late Ray Manzarek bragging about the simplicity of The End.
I think all this can sometimes even hurt a song it really depends.

Of course it depends, but there's nothing objective to brag about in terms of simplicity either. Unthought Known's 'simplicity' killed it towards the end. Songs which aren't straight 2/4 or 4/4, fast or slow, are more interesting to me personally, and if you want to talk about variety, it's these you look at. It's just my opinion and in the end (boom boom) it doesn't matter much, they're just PJ songs and I like most of them.

Well i think it's a much broader and interesting topic than how it's usually presented here. Reading RM you'd think a song's quality is to be judged on the number of chords it's constructed with and the amount of uncommon elements it contains. You'd think how all that sounds is of secondary importance.

[nomorecrackpipes]

Jeff is the second best lyricist in the band.

[Heathen]

I must be reading a completely different RM then

[harmless]

Fair point regarding 'Sad' and possibly 'Insignificance', but I would call Habit a 'fast' song, although not quite punk fast. Also, yeah, maybe you could put any one of the members' songs into those categories, but (for example) Matt's songs include the more quirky time signature changes and accents, and Stone's songs tend to be more groovy mid-tempo a lot of the time. Not always, sure, but Ed's songs are more easily called 'folky' or 'punky' generally I think.

How does that exactly make a song better? The emphasis on this is fairly recent too. You can probably find a bunch of videos on youtube of the late Ray Manzarek bragging about the simplicity of The End.
I think all this can sometimes even hurt a song it really depends.

Of course it depends, but there's nothing objective to brag about in terms of simplicity either. Unthought Known's 'simplicity' killed it towards the end. Songs which aren't straight 2/4 or 4/4, fast or slow, are more interesting to me personally, and if you want to talk about variety, it's these you look at. It's just my opinion and in the end (boom boom) it doesn't matter much, they're just PJ songs and I like most of them.

Well i think it's a much broader and interesting topic than how it's usually presented here. Reading RM you'd think a song's quality is to be judged on the number of chords it's constructed with and the amount of uncommon elements it contains. You'd think how all that sounds is of secondary importance.

I'm pretty sure most people who like that stuff, like it because to them it sounds more interesting. That's my feeling, but there are exceptions. PJ have never been amazingly inventive.

[Mine]

Their methodology seems to be to give the music credit to whoever brings in the demo.

This is standard i think. Arrangements aren't covered by royalties and i suspect it would be difficult to separate the 2 after they start working on a demo.

And you read my sarcasm right. It's not about taking sides. Id' have to be a fan since the early 90's to be worthy of that. I make those kind of posts for argument's sake because it gets boring or even ridiculous when the reason that Ed has most of the credits on albums and Lost Dogs isn't because he's the most prolific but because he's the biggest asshole in the band.

[Mine]

Fair point regarding 'Sad' and possibly 'Insignificance', but I would call Habit a 'fast' song, although not quite punk fast. Also, yeah, maybe you could put any one of the members' songs into those categories, but (for example) Matt's songs include the more quirky time signature changes and accents, and Stone's songs tend to be more groovy mid-tempo a lot of the time. Not always, sure, but Ed's songs are more easily called 'folky' or 'punky' generally I think.

How does that exactly make a song better? The emphasis on this is fairly recent too. You can probably find a bunch of videos on youtube of the late Ray Manzarek bragging about the simplicity of The End.
I think all this can sometimes even hurt a song it really depends.

Of course it depends, but there's nothing objective to brag about in terms of simplicity either. Unthought Known's 'simplicity' killed it towards the end. Songs which aren't straight 2/4 or 4/4, fast or slow, are more interesting to me personally, and if you want to talk about variety, it's these you look at. It's just my opinion and in the end (boom boom) it doesn't matter much, they're just PJ songs and I like most of them.

Well i think it's a much broader and interesting topic than how it's usually presented here. Reading RM you'd think a song's quality is to be judged on the number of chords it's constructed with and the amount of uncommon elements it contains. You'd think how all that sounds is of secondary importance.

I'm pretty sure most people who like that stuff, like it because to them it sounds more interesting. That's my feeling, but there are exceptions. PJ have never been amazingly inventive.

It's actually how this whole thing started. CitizenByron listed a bunch of songs that to him demonstrate variety and you argued that. I actually think you made a good point. I think most people would recognise substantial variety in ed's songs despite technically speaking there isn't in certain aspects but you could apply the same logic to most popular music.

[CitizenByron]

Fair point regarding 'Sad' and possibly 'Insignificance', but I would call Habit a 'fast' song, although not quite punk fast. Also, yeah, maybe you could put any one of the members' songs into those categories, but (for example) Matt's songs include the more quirky time signature changes and accents, and Stone's songs tend to be more groovy mid-tempo a lot of the time. Not always, sure, but Ed's songs are more easily called 'folky' or 'punky' generally I think.

How does that exactly make a song better? The emphasis on this is fairly recent too. You can probably find a bunch of videos on youtube of the late Ray Manzarek bragging about the simplicity of The End.
I think all this can sometimes even hurt a song it really depends.

Of course it depends, but there's nothing objective to brag about in terms of simplicity either. Unthought Known's 'simplicity' killed it towards the end. Songs which aren't straight 2/4 or 4/4, fast or slow, are more interesting to me personally, and if you want to talk about variety, it's these you look at. It's just my opinion and in the end (boom boom) it doesn't matter much, they're just PJ songs and I like most of them.

Well i think it's a much broader and interesting topic than how it's usually presented here. Reading RM you'd think a song's quality is to be judged on the number of chords it's constructed with and the amount of uncommon elements it contains. You'd think how all that sounds is of secondary importance.

I'm pretty sure most people who like that stuff, like it because to them it sounds more interesting. That's my feeling, but there are exceptions. PJ have never been amazingly inventive.

It's actually how this whole thing started. CitizenByron listed a bunch of songs that to him demonstrate variety and you argued that. I actually think you made a good point. I think most people would recognise substantial variety in ed's songs despite technically speaking there isn't in certain aspects but you could apply the same logic to most popular music.

In the end, however you want to pick the songs, Ed's the guy with the most diverse portfolio in front of him. No one else in the band can touch his prolific amount of material nor the breadth of that material in regards to song structure, construction, style, etc... No one else has it or at least if they have, they haven't shared it publicly. But I DO concede the point that all things being even, we are talking about Pearl Jam here and not the Velvet Underground trying to break new sonic tones and everything. THis is a mainstream rock band so it's not like some Hovercraft record or something by the Aphex Twins. They stay with open chords and power chords a lot. Most of their songs are in 4/4 time, etc...

[Heathen]

the Aphex Twins

[harmless]

Fair point regarding 'Sad' and possibly 'Insignificance', but I would call Habit a 'fast' song, although not quite punk fast. Also, yeah, maybe you could put any one of the members' songs into those categories, but (for example) Matt's songs include the more quirky time signature changes and accents, and Stone's songs tend to be more groovy mid-tempo a lot of the time. Not always, sure, but Ed's songs are more easily called 'folky' or 'punky' generally I think.

How does that exactly make a song better? The emphasis on this is fairly recent too. You can probably find a bunch of videos on youtube of the late Ray Manzarek bragging about the simplicity of The End.
I think all this can sometimes even hurt a song it really depends.

Of course it depends, but there's nothing objective to brag about in terms of simplicity either. Unthought Known's 'simplicity' killed it towards the end. Songs which aren't straight 2/4 or 4/4, fast or slow, are more interesting to me personally, and if you want to talk about variety, it's these you look at. It's just my opinion and in the end (boom boom) it doesn't matter much, they're just PJ songs and I like most of them.

Well i think it's a much broader and interesting topic than how it's usually presented here. Reading RM you'd think a song's quality is to be judged on the number of chords it's constructed with and the amount of uncommon elements it contains. You'd think how all that sounds is of secondary importance.

I'm pretty sure most people who like that stuff, like it because to them it sounds more interesting. That's my feeling, but there are exceptions. PJ have never been amazingly inventive.

It's actually how this whole thing started. CitizenByron listed a bunch of songs that to him demonstrate variety and you argued that. I actually think you made a good point. I think most people would recognise substantial variety in ed's songs despite technically speaking there isn't in certain aspects but you could apply the same logic to most popular music.

In the end, however you want to pick the songs, Ed's the guy with the most diverse portfolio in front of him. No one else in the band can touch his prolific amount of material nor the breadth of that material in regards to song structure, construction, style, etc... No one else has it or at least if they have, they haven't shared it publicly. But I DO concede the point that all things being even, we are talking about Pearl Jam here and not the Velvet Underground trying to break new sonic tones and everything. THis is a mainstream rock band so it's not like some Hovercraft record or something by the Aphex Twins. They stay with open chords and power chords a lot. Most of their songs are in 4/4 time, etc...

'Diverse' and 'prolific' are totally different things.

[digster]

Their methodology seems to be to give the music credit to whoever brings in the demo.

This is standard i think. Arrangements aren't covered by royalties and i suspect it would be difficult to separate the 2 after they start working on a demo.

And you read my sarcasm right. It's not about taking sides. Id' have to be a fan since the early 90's to be worthy of that. I make those kind of posts for argument's sake because it gets boring or even ridiculous when the reason that Ed has most of the credits on albums and Lost Dogs isn't because he's the most prolific but because he's the biggest asshole in the band.

It's not standard across the board, I don't think; many rock bands have different approaches to how they credit their songs. R.E.M. and Radiohead are two examples of bands that just credit the music to the band at all times, even though both of those groups work in a relatively similar fashion to PJ (i.e. band members demo material on their own and bring it in to get worked on by their bands). It just seems the easiest approach with bands like Pearl Jam that write songs in all different ways.

I don't think it's because Ed's the biggest asshole in the band. The more likely explanation I would bet is that prior to working on a record with the group, Ed has a year-and-a-half (or more) of working on music and lyrics for his own stuff. I'd imagine he'd rather bring more of that stuff to the table for a record that try to write a whole new album based off of what other people bring in.

I think, personally, that Pearl Jam has bigger problems than who's writing what and how much of it they're writing. They've had great albums with Ed writing a main chunk of the material (No Code), and not so great ones (Backspacer). And vice versa with the band having precedence of the material for any given album. I think it's more based on the ability of the band to harness whatever creativity they have going into an album. They just seemed to have lost the ability.

[Mine]

I think it's more based on the ability of the band to harness whatever creativity they have going into an album. They just seemed to have lost the ability.

I think the creativity or inspiration is what diminished and the lack of that ability, which they probably never really developed as a band because individual egos of certain people were the priority, is beginning to show.

[digster]

Eh, I doubt that personally. Every band has struggles with ego and trying to figure out your place. I think it's more just that they're over 20 years old as a band and it's typically hard to keep making music that's consistently great for that long, and (for fair reasons), it's just not as big a part of their lives as it used to be.

[nustang70]

Know what would be cool to accompany this?
A breakdown album by album of who wrote what, track by track.
I've always wondered.
Ed and to a far lesser degree, Stone are the only two whose songs I can identify.

You can find the writing credits breakdown track by track on wikipedia. Some wonderful people have even tracked down the credits for the albums that didn't list individual credits. See, for example, the Vs track listing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vs._(Pearl ... ck_listing

Eh, fuck it. Here it is again, Writing credits for everything from the release of Merkinball through Mind Your Manners...

Vedder (39) – I Got Id, Long Road, Sometimes, Off He Goes, Habit, Lukin, Around The Bend, Black, Red, Yellow, Dead Man, Wishlist, MFC, Leatherman, U, Drifting, Breakerfall, Insignificance, Grievance, Soon Forget, Parting Ways, Sad, Hitchhiker, Education, Can't Keep, I Am Mine, Thumbing My Way, Green Disease, Arc, Undone, Man of the Hour, Worldwide Suicide, Severed Hand, Gone, Santa God, Santa Cruz, Gonna See My Friend, Just Breathe, Unthought Known, Speed of Sound, The End
Gossard/Vedder (9) – Do The Evolution, In Hiding, Bu$hleaguer, All or None, Life Wasted, Parachutes, Wasted Reprise, Amongst The Waves, Supersonic
Ament/Vedder (9) – Smile, Push Me, Pull Me, Sleight of Hand, Ghost, ½ Full, Big Wave, Army Reserve (with Damien Echols), Got Some, Ole
Gossard (9) – Mankind, Don't Gimme No Lip, No Way, All Those Yesterdays, Strangest Tribe, Thin Air, Of the Girl, Rival, Fatal
McCready/Vedder (9) – Present Tense, Brain of J., Faithfull, Given to Fly, Marker In The Sand, Come Back, Inside Job, Force of Nature, Mind Your Manners
Ament (7) – Pilate, Low Light, God's Dice, Nothing As It Seems, Sweet Lew, Help, Help, Other Side
FULL BAND (3) – Red Mosquito, All Night, Save You
Gossard/McCready/Vedder (3)– Light Years, Down, Comatose
Cameron/Vedder (3) - Evacuation, Cropduster, You Are
Irons (3) - Happy When I'm Crying, Red Dot, Whale Song
McCready (2) – Last Soldier, Turning Mist
Cameron (2) – In the Moonlight, Get Right
Gossard/Vedder/Irons (2) – Who You Are, In My Tree
Gossard/Cameron/Vedder (1) – Johnny Guitar
McCready/Cameron/Vedder (1) - Unemployable
Ament/Gossard/McCready/Vedder (1) – Hail, Hail
Gossard/McCready/Cameron/Vedder (1) – The Fixer
Vedder/Gaspar (1) – Love Boat Captain
Vedder/Irons (1) – I'm Open

Awesome. Do you happen to know which songs Vedder contributed to the music, and which ones were just lyrics?

[iceagecoming]

Know what would be cool to accompany this?
A breakdown album by album of who wrote what, track by track.
I've always wondered.
Ed and to a far lesser degree, Stone are the only two whose songs I can identify.

You can find the writing credits breakdown track by track on wikipedia. Some wonderful people have even tracked down the credits for the albums that didn't list individual credits. See, for example, the Vs track listing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vs._(Pearl ... ck_listing

Gossard/Vedder (9) – Do The Evolution, In Hiding, Bu$hleaguer, All or None, Life Wasted, Parachutes, Wasted Reprise, Amongst The Waves, Supersonic
Ament/Vedder (9) – Smile, Push Me, Pull Me, Sleight of Hand, Ghost, ½ Full, Big Wave, Army Reserve (with Damien Echols), Got Some, Ole
Gossard (9) – Mankind, Don't Gimme No Lip, No Way, All Those Yesterdays, Strangest Tribe, Thin Air, Of the Girl, Rival, Fatal
McCready/Vedder (9) – Present Tense, Brain of J., Faithfull, Given to Fly, Marker In The Sand, Come Back, Inside Job, Force of Nature, Mind Your Manners
Ament (7) – Pilate, Low Light, God's Dice, Nothing As It Seems, Sweet Lew, Help, Help, Other Side
FULL BAND (3) – Red Mosquito, All Night, Save You
Gossard/McCready/Vedder (3)– Light Years, Down, Comatose
Cameron/Vedder (3) - Evacuation, Cropduster, You Are
Irons (3) - Happy When I'm Crying, Red Dot, Whale Song
McCready (2) – Last Soldier, Turning Mist
Cameron (2) – In the Moonlight, Get Right
Gossard/Vedder/Irons (2) – Who You Are, In My Tree
Gossard/Cameron/Vedder (1) – Johnny Guitar
McCready/Cameron/Vedder (1) - Unemployable
Ament/Gossard/McCready/Vedder (1) – Hail, Hail
Gossard/McCready/Cameron/Vedder (1) – The Fixer
Vedder/Gaspar (1) – Love Boat Captain
Vedder/Irons (1) – I'm Open

Awesome. Do you happen to know which songs Vedder contributed to the music, and which ones were just lyrics?

I think just lyrics for all those, except the ones in red.

[Lament]

I think just lyrics for all those, except the ones in red.

I was gonna say, I have no idea, I just pulled all that info from album credits, but I figured someone here would. Are your guesses in red based on things they've said interviews?

[Jorge]

I think just lyrics for all those, except the ones in red.

I was gonna say, I have no idea, I just pulled all that info from album credits, but I figured someone here would. Are your guesses in red based on things they've said interviews?

It looks like the ones in red are Ed co-songwriting credits in which he also plays guitar.

[stip]

i seem to recall eddie implying that stone wrote the come back music during the S/T pre launch interviews.

[Birds in Hell]

I think just lyrics for all those, except the ones in red.

I was gonna say, I have no idea, I just pulled all that info from album credits, but I figured someone here would. Are your guesses in red based on things they've said interviews?

The liner notes of the records often reveal where Ed contributed only lyrics or both lyrics and musical ideas.

Mike wrote the music to Come Back entirely from memory. It's rare for Ed to play guitar on a song he didn't write.