No Code: Official Album Thread

[Anders]

Off He Goes may be a top five underrated Pearl Jam song. No song benefits more from the warmth of No Code than this song. It's like they caught lightning in a bottle when the recorded this. The lyrics could easily be about Neil Young (from Ed's perspective), but that's neither good nor bad. We all have a friend or an uncle like this.

[Anders]

Habit, clearly a song about excessive drug use in some form.

What sets it apart is the dark rolling rock in the background, the pauses make that more powerful. From someone originally coming to Pearl Jam from a previous love of hard rock/metal, this song warms my heart. Wish we had more songs like it.

[Anders]

Red Mosquito is one of my least favorite tracks on No Code. Still it certainly fits in with the rest of the album, sonically and lyrically. if i had known then what i know now...

[Anders]

Lukin is just a lot of fun. Feels like the least important song on the album, but it's still great.

[Anders]

are you getting something out of this all encompassing trip?
you can spend your time alone, redigesting past regrets
or you can come to terms and realize
you're the only one who can't forgive yourself

Present Tense does not deserve the scorn it gets here. The lyrics are on point, and the song sounds beautiful. I even love it as singalong.

[Anders]

Makind feels like Lukin, in being a step out of the album. But man do I love Stone singing. Just wish his solo releases had more a full rock band feel going on in the background.

[Anders]

Not going to lie. I love I'm Open in the context of this album.

when he was six he believed that the moon overhead followed him
by nine he had deciphered the illusion, trading magic for fact
no tradebacks...
so this is what it's like to be an adult

I feel like that every day.

[Anders]

you're an angel when you sleep
how i want your soul to keep
on and on around the bend

Thank you for this wonderful album.

[Strat]

Makind feels like Lukin, in being a step out of the album. But man do I love Stone singing. Just wish his solo releases had more a full rock band feel going on in the background.

I think stone is over the "rock" though.

[Anders]

Makind feels like Lukin, in being a step out of the album. But man do I love Stone singing. Just wish his solo releases had more a full rock band feel going on in the background.

I think stone is over the "rock" though.

I think you are right.

[Ms Harmless]

I can't get enough of the sonic landscape that In My Tree lives in. The band has never sounded better.

We have always got something new to learn, ever until the day we die. But hopefully we can enjoy life along the way, and not get stuck in a negative news cycle.

up here in my tree
newspapers matter not to me
no more crowbars to my head
i'm trading stories with the leaves instead

I remember when
I swore I knew everything
let's say knowledge is a tree
it's growing up just like me
i'm so light the wind he shakes
i'm so high the sky i scrape
i'm so light i hold just one breath and go back to my nest

those lyrics are so good, ugh

[Ms Harmless]

are you getting something out of this all encompassing trip?
you can spend your time alone, redigesting past regrets
or you can come to terms and realize
you're the only one who can't forgive yourself

Present Tense does not deserve the scorn it gets here. The lyrics are on point, and the song sounds beautiful. I even love it as singalong.

agreed, it's amazing

[Ms Harmless]

Red Mosquito is one of my least favorite tracks on No Code. Still it certainly fits in with the rest of the album, sonically and lyrically. if i had known then what i know now...

Red Mosquito has this lovely folky drinking song type quality to it, it's that rough waltzy lilt; I'm not always in the mood, but when I am, I like to sing it at the top of my tipsy lungs

[Anders]

Red Mosquito is one of my least favorite tracks on No Code. Still it certainly fits in with the rest of the album, sonically and lyrically. if i had known then what i know now...

Red Mosquito has this lovely folky drinking song type quality to it, it's that rough waltzy lilt; I'm not always in the mood, but when I am, I like to sing it at the top of my tipsy lungs

That's good.

It also gave name to this forum.

[Jorge]

I can't get enough of the sonic landscape that In My Tree lives in. The band has never sounded better.

We have always got something new to learn, ever until the day we die. But hopefully we can enjoy life along the way, and not get stuck in a negative news cycle.

up here in my tree
newspapers matter not to me
no more crowbars to my head
i'm trading stories with the leaves instead

I remember when
I swore I knew everything
let's say knowledge is a tree
it's growing up just like me
i'm so light the wind he shakes
i'm so high the sky i scrape
i'm so light i hold just one breath and go back to my nest

those lyrics are so good, ugh

The guitar during that section is great, the contrapuntal arpeggios over the chords, and then the descending melody lines after each line sung in the following chorus, the bass lifting to lead into "still got it, still got it". The more I listen to it, the less I agree with Trag; it is one of their most dynamic and accomplished arrangements

[Kevin Davis]

Implied harmony is a thing dude

I understand that, but I don’t understand how he claims to hear from this boring ass bass line

But whether a melodic line is "boring" has nothing to do with whether it implies harmony. A simple repeated "root note bass line," by its very nature, communicates enough information to imply harmony around it, certainly much more discernably than a complex melody that flies up and down and across scales. We're really drilling down on this comment but I think the point was very simple: starting the song with only a simple bassline to imply harmonic accompaniment sounds neat, and it makes it that much more satisfying when those guitars finally do kick in.

Yes, this was very much what I was getting at -- I think it's common in songs that rely exclusively on basslines to provide the musical groundwork for a vocal melody. It's not necessarily something that's readily apparent until a person has registered the framework of the song, but it's absolutely there. If a simple bassline, for example, is C-D-F-G, those notes could be the bass accompaniment for any number of chords -- even in really simple terms, if the song is in the key of C, the next D note could serve as the root note for a D major or a D minor chord, chords which are only different from each other by one note, yet that difference has significant implications for the sonic and emotional feel of the song. As a song becomes more familiar, I think listeners -- especially listeners who tend to fret over musical nuance -- become more capable of registering what chords, what harmonies, are "supposed" to be there, based on the way all the other elements of the song work. It's one of those Thelonious Monk, "don't play all the notes, leave some to the listener's imagination"-type things -- to me, this is in that category. The fact that it's a simple bassline, by nature, means that this effect is more, not less pronounced -- the more intricate a bassline becomes, the more the harmony (those chord-defining notes) becomes not implied, but stated outright.

Totally fine if Trag doesn't hear it, but I do and it's one of the things I like about "In My Tree."

Though, I would certainly be much kinder to "Animal" in the context of a conversation that doesn't involve me comparing it to one of my favorite No Code songs.

[stip]

I'd be interested in the songs stip is talking about, because I can't think of a single song where Jack is doing what he shouldn't be doing. I get preferring Dave A.; though they're both rock drummers, they have identifiable and clearly different styles and approaches. But Irons doesn't ever feel out of place here, to me.

I wonder if it's more a question of Jack's style; I feel his impact on the songs a bit more overtly on this one than I do on Yield, for example.

I am sure I don't have the musical vocabulary to describe it. It's probably his style. I just notice what he's doing in a way that seems to stand apart from the rest of the song, and I'm usually not a fan of it.

[stip]

I can't get enough of the sonic landscape that In My Tree lives in. The band has never sounded better.

We have always got something new to learn, ever until the day we die. But hopefully we can enjoy life along the way, and not get stuck in a negative news cycle.

up here in my tree
newspapers matter not to me
no more crowbars to my head
i'm trading stories with the leaves instead

I remember when
I swore I knew everything
let's say knowledge is a tree
it's growing up just like me
i'm so light the wind he shakes
i'm so high the sky i scrape
i'm so light i hold just one breath and go back to my nest

those lyrics are so good, ugh

I like the chorus lyrics quite a bit (and the sky I scrape image is really good). But most of the lyrics on No Code have not aged well to me. Almost all ideas Eddie continued to develop over time and with age, and sentiments I think he captured more artfully and poetically elsewhere.

I also really don't like trees as a metaphor. I prefer waves

[darth_vedder]

the NC talk team, good work.

Also, Jack is probably the best part of Mirror Ball, No Code, and Yield.

[Jorge]

I'd be interested in the songs stip is talking about, because I can't think of a single song where Jack is doing what he shouldn't be doing. I get preferring Dave A.; though they're both rock drummers, they have identifiable and clearly different styles and approaches. But Irons doesn't ever feel out of place here, to me.

I wonder if it's more a question of Jack's style; I feel his impact on the songs a bit more overtly on this one than I do on Yield, for example.

I am sure I don't have the musical vocabulary to describe it. It's probably his style. I just notice what he's doing in a way that seems to stand apart from the rest of the song, and I'm usually not a fan of it.

I know what you mean but I like it.