Red Mosquito

Why is it Yield songs sounds bigger better and beefier and more enjoyable when played on the radio?

Is it the surprise factor? Is it FM wonderdust? heard DTE today on a random station and it sounded so great. Maybe cos I haven't heard it in so long. I dunno

digster wrote:

durdencommatyler wrote:

stip wrote: Maybe my ranking of Backspacer ahead of Yield (up until a year ago) was the newness of Backspacer? Or perhaps it was because Backspacer actually was effortless and more fully captured what I thought Yield was. Now that I don't think Yield is that thing anymore, I can't put it ahead of Backspacer. Though, I still love both albums tremendously.

As time's gone on, I kind have come to feel that Yield is Backspacer done right. They both strike me as being the most jubiliant listens in their catalog, but the former feels effortless in it's optimism.

both variations on a theme, for sure. Backspacer for me is the 'purer' listen in part because I think Yield is a more complicated/conflicted album (which I think helps make it interesting. Yield fights against itself in a way backspacer doesn't)

Yield fights against itself in a way backspacer doesn't

How so?

I think I've talked about this elsewhere. I think that No Code and Yield are examples of a group of artists trying to convince themselves that everything is okay, that they have a newfound wisdom, and that they have made their peace with the world and themselves when they really haven't. I also think the Daniel Quinn themes running through the album are counter to the broader sense of engagement that characterizes their music and their broader philosophy, and so Yield in particular seems like a record that is trying to convince itself that it believes its message, and ultimately fails.


This is not a critique of the album, btw.

I'm curious where you hear that in the album. I mean, no PJ album is without its own particular tensions (two of my favorite songs on "Backspacer" are about guys who fritter their lives away over love interests that never deign to show up), but I always thought "Yield" was a record about still acknowledging the imperfections of the world yet learning to recognize when they are and aren't within your control, and letting that dictate your peace of mind. I can definitely see how some lyrics would sound like the band is professing that they've found some kind of answer ("I've stopped trying to make a difference," "I surfaced and all of my being was enlightened," etc.), but more than anything I think those are clumsy platitudes or just examples of not particularly great lyrics. I think when you take the sum total of the songs on the record, the picture you get is that of a tempestuous world with many opportunities for momentary respite, the latter just being where the lens happens to snap the band at that particular moment.

Damn, you nailed it.

Kevin Davis wrote:I'm curious where you hear that in the album. I mean, no PJ album is without its own particular tensions (two of my favorite songs on "Backspacer" are about guys who fritter their lives away over love interests that never deign to show up), but I always thought "Yield" was a record about still acknowledging the imperfections of the world yet learning to recognize when they are and aren't within your control, and letting that dictate your peace of mind. I can definitely see how some lyrics would sound like the band is professing that they've found some kind of answer ("I've stopped trying to make a difference," "I surfaced and all of my being was enlightened," etc.), but more than anything I think those are clumsy platitudes or just examples of not particularly great lyrics. I think when you take the sum total of the songs on the record, the picture you get is that of a tempestuous world with many opportunities for momentary respite, the latter just being where the lens happens to snap the band at that particular moment.

It's entirely possible I'm reading too much into the Quinn influence (I was a big fan of his once upon a time), but (as per his writings), the central theme on Yield doesn't seem to be respite. It seems to be detachment or escape--that the only way to make peace with the world is to withdraw from it (Quinn's ultimate conclusion), and I don't think (certainly at the time) that they believed that (although perhaps they really wanted to). And the focus is different than Backspapcer, which is also a record about finding peace, but it finds it from embracing the world with all its imperfections, rather than running from it, a stand that is A: more in line with what I suspect they believe and B: arguably more mature (the perspective), reflecting the time and the people who wrote it. Yield and No Code are albums that are offering wisdom and perspective prematurely--proffering answers while the subject is still searching for them.

It's more than just a few clumsy lyrics. I hear this all over the album, and the moments add up and paint a very different picture for me. And while a number of these songs are personal, pearl jam's personal songs are often informed by the larger political (broadly understood) themes they are grappling with. The relationship with the self is determined by the relationship with the world outside the self.


The first half of the record has a number of moments about reaching out to other people and taking them on your journey, or acknowledging that some kind of inner peace or contentment/acceptance of the world is impossible without other people in it, and this is, I think, moving in the right direction. Had they followed this line throughout the record I'd feel different about it (and Backspacer gets this right). But they don't. And side A and side B really seem to oppose each other

A few quick examples, but not exhaustive:


Side A:

Brain of J: About rejecting what we've always believed (as are the first 4 songs, in their own way), but it barrels into the future with a pretty determined desire to change it.

Faithful: You can't reinvent the world without someone to reinvent it for, and to reinvent it with. Traditional message, dressed up in spiritual themes that were somewhat newish

No Way: It is sarcastic and clumsy, and early in the record, sandwhiched between the most engaged songs on the album, it is easy enough to treat it that way. However, it looks less sarcastic and asks to be taken a bit more at its word given the album as a whole.

Given To Fly: I know many of us consider this the flagship song on Yield, and I've said before that I consider this one of Pearl Jam's three 'mission statement' songs, but given to fly is, in a lot of ways, a singular moment on a record that doesn't really correspond to the ideas on the rest of the album. The story that takes place in Yield is one it sounds like many read into the larger album--you journey elsewhere, alone, to find the strength to return and keep fighting. And that happens here, and is really nicely done (this is a fantastic song), but other than the gentle descent from the highs of GTF we find in Wishlist (which comes down while still holding the thread--similar ideas, but more personal and less messianic) we find most of the other songs actually preaching the opposite. Solitary escape with no return date in sight.

Wishlist: a song about wishing you were good enough for the people you care about. Like I said earlier, this is one of the three songs that fights against the rest of the album

Pilate: Jeff is hard to get a read on lyrically on this album, and I never read the book it is based on, so I won't comment here.


Side B:

After red dot pretty much every remaining song I hear this theme of peace through withdrawal because engagement is impossible. They are also all solitary songs. The connection to other people that is in wishlist, given to fly, faithful. that's all gone

Do the Evolution: This whole song is about how we are totally fucked and there's nothing we can do about it except dance on our remains.

MFC: There's a lot to be said for nowhere (compare to the 'right here' delivery with the live experience, where the song is transformed--as is in hiding--into a song about solidarity--as is almost every pearl jam song. He/she/we've disappeared. the whole song is about escape, with little sense that the person is going to return. Certainly nothing in the songs that follow indicate that.

Low Light: Who knows? But, going with the car crash theme that the song seems to be about, and the soothing music and delivery (with the tension underneath) the song feels like a forced calm or peace layered over a tragedy


In Hiding: a song about going to ground and never emerging.

Push Me/Pull Me: It's all meaningless, so just pull me out...

All Those Yesterdays: The final song on every pearl jam record really tends to tie the themes of the album together, and escape is all over all those yesterdays. It's no crime to escape.

huh, I just read the lyrics to brain of J on pearl jam.com and I never knew that the lyric in the first verse was

Oh, it's sound insurance
But I can tell you, this is no lie

I just listened and can hear that now, and I like this a lot more than what I thought was there.

Knowing already that I imagine we just approach music in differing ways most of the time, I can't but feel as though that kind of textual analysis is thoroughly unsuited to critiquing a rock n' roll album.

stip wrote:Pilate: Jeff is hard to get a read on lyrically on this album, and I never read the book it is based on, so I won't comment here.

The Master and Margarita is phenomenal. I don't think reading it makes Pilate any better or more understandable though.

Critical analyses of Pearl Jam misses the point for me as this is a rock record and that, at least for me, is about the emotional response you have to music, lyrics and melody and the enjoyment of that experience rather than the 'themes' of each song. I don't think a lot of Pearl Jam songs make sense when you just read the lyrics, or at least aren't that interesting, but when you hear the song it's a different story altogether.

Perhaps when you write it all down like that Yield isn't cohesive, but when I listen to it the thing completely fits together.

Birds in Hell wrote:Knowing already that I imagine we just approach music in differing ways most of the time, I can't but feel as though that kind of textual analysis is thoroughly unsuited to critiquing a rock n' roll album.

I should have just quoted this.

Birds in Hell wrote:Knowing already that I imagine we just approach music in differing ways most of the time, I can't but feel as though that kind of textual analysis is thoroughly unsuited to critiquing a rock n' roll album.

well it is not the only thing I look for in a rock album, and it's not the first thing either. But musicians who want their music and their ideas taken seriously invite it, and once you start a conversation about what songs and albums are about you certainly make space for this.

Blenheim Augustine wrote:

stip wrote:Pilate: Jeff is hard to get a read on lyrically on this album, and I never read the book it is based on, so I won't comment here.

The Master and Margarita is phenomenal. I don't think reading it makes Pilate any better or more understandable though.

Critical analyses of Pearl Jam misses the point for me as this is a rock record and that, at least for me, is about the emotional response you have to music, lyrics and melody and the enjoyment of that experience rather than the 'themes' of each song. I don't think a lot of Pearl Jam songs make sense when you just read the lyrics, or at least aren't that interesting, but when you hear the song it's a different story altogether.

Perhaps when you write it all down like that Yield isn't cohesive, but when I listen to it the thing completely fits together.

your emotional response isn't really right or wrong. you own your experience of the art. And I agree that the lyrics have to be understood part and parcel with the music, the delivery, and all the rest (in fact, I say as much a few places in my longer post above). But the lyrics are still part of the overall package and, if the artist takes the lyrics seriously, are also (despite the ambiguities that can and do still exist in them) often the easiest way to get a read on what a song is about since words have more precise meaning and less interpretive nuance than music. this isn't always the case, but it often is, especially with pearl jam, and songs where this isn't the case (think Got Some, for instance) the lack of importance given to the lyrics is itself significant--a signal about how the song should be understood.

The above is why I hear the songs the way I do. KD asked why I interpret a record the way I do. This is why. It is in response to the way he understands the album.

Kevin Davis wrote:I'm curious where you hear that in the album. I mean, no PJ album is without its own particular tensions (two of my favorite songs on "Backspacer" are about guys who fritter their lives away over love interests that never deign to show up), but I always thought "Yield" was a record about still acknowledging the imperfections of the world yet learning to recognize when they are and aren't within your control, and letting that dictate your peace of mind. I can definitely see how some lyrics would sound like the band is professing that they've found some kind of answer ("I've stopped trying to make a difference," "I surfaced and all of my being was enlightened," etc.), but more than anything I think those are clumsy platitudes or just examples of not particularly great lyrics. I think when you take the sum total of the songs on the record, the picture you get is that of a tempestuous world with many opportunities for momentary respite, the latter just being where the lens happens to snap the band at that particular moment.

I drove Yield into the ground trying to write a guided tour of it, and you pretty much nailed it in a sentence.

For me, it'd be hard to hear that album the way stip does because I feel like there's too much information happening lyrically going in the other direction. Also, I think I read Evolution 100 percent differently than he does (i.e. I don't think he, or we, are meant to believe that the fucked up things people to do each other are okay just because it's 'evolution.')

of course it is not okay, but society treats it that way, which is why it is such a despairing song.

digster wrote:

Kevin Davis wrote:I'm curious where you hear that in the album. I mean, no PJ album is without its own particular tensions (two of my favorite songs on "Backspacer" are about guys who fritter their lives away over love interests that never deign to show up), but I always thought "Yield" was a record about still acknowledging the imperfections of the world yet learning to recognize when they are and aren't within your control, and letting that dictate your peace of mind. I can definitely see how some lyrics would sound like the band is professing that they've found some kind of answer ("I've stopped trying to make a difference," "I surfaced and all of my being was enlightened," etc.), but more than anything I think those are clumsy platitudes or just examples of not particularly great lyrics. I think when you take the sum total of the songs on the record, the picture you get is that of a tempestuous world with many opportunities for momentary respite, the latter just being where the lens happens to snap the band at that particular moment.

I drove Yield into the ground trying to write a guided tour of it, and you pretty much nailed it in a sentence.

For me, it'd be hard to hear that album the way stip does because I feel like there's too much information happening lyrically going in the other direction. Also, I think I read Evolution 100 percent differently than he does (i.e. I don't think he, or we, are meant to believe that the fucked up things people to do each other are okay just because it's 'evolution.')

+1 on the DTE interpretation

look, obviously the song is sarcastic and a critique, but does this song inspire you with a great deal of optimism that we are going to go out and change this. It is in the same vein as a song like comatose, an indictment of the attitudes of a nation/civilization, but whereas Comatose has that moment of resistance (primarily in the chorus) DTE is a song about going mad at the end of the world. This is a song full of despair that tries to mask it by making light of it.

stip wrote:your emotional response isn't really right or wrong. you own your experience of the art. And I agree that the lyrics have to be understood part and parcel with the music, the delivery, and all the rest (in fact, I say as much a few places in my longer post above). But the lyrics are still part of the overall package and, if the artist takes the lyrics seriously, are also (despite the ambiguities that can and do still exist in them) often the easiest way to get a read on what a song is about since words have more precise meaning and less interpretive nuance than music. this isn't always the case, but it often is, especially with pearl jam, and songs where this isn't the case (think Got Some, for instance) the lack of importance given to the lyrics is itself significant--a signal about how the song should be understood.

The above is why I hear the songs the way I do. KD asked why I interpret a record the way I do. This is why. It is in response to the way he understands the album.

I'm referring more to your thematic analysis rather than the idea that lyrics aren't important, I don't think I said that. And if we are to discuss themes, I'm not convinced that Pearl Jam exhibit a "broader sense of engagement" in their key songs to that point - I don't know how stuff like Go, Animal, Black, Jeremy, Daughter, RVM, Last Exit, Not for You, Corduroy, Betterman, Off He Goes and In My Tree are about engagement - for the most part they are all about escape or being alone.

Re DTE - It's pure Juvenalian satire so it's gonna be pessimistic.

stip wrote:look, obviously the song is sarcastic and a critique, but does this song inspire you with a great deal of optimism that we are going to go out and change this. It is in the same vein as a song like comatose, an indictment of the attitudes of a nation/civilization, but whereas Comatose has that moment of resistance (primarily in the chorus) DTE is a song about going mad at the end of the world. This is a song full of despair that tries to mask it by making light of it.

Stip, I know where you are coming from with DtE and pretty much agree.

The "2010 watch it go to fire" line pretty much cements there being no optimism that things are going to get better in any way, and in fact that it will only get worse.