Isn't that ITTW? Or is he redundant?

He's been on RM since he was 13-14 something like that. It's been a pleasure to watch & read him grow up.

First off, thanks to everyone so far. There's been alot of really strong points tha are already making me rethink everything I thought about the album. I'll have the first song up later this afternoon.



I think this is a really interesting point, but I do disagree with you here, for two main reasons. One is the fact that although there was rage after the band made Yield, their rage became more explicitly political after this, all the way until Backspacer. This isn't to say that the three albums following Yield can only be defined and understood through the lens of politics, but they're a much bigger part of the music and the words than ever before. I think Pearl Jam post-Yield had different concerns on its' plate, mainly struggling how to write about the right-ward swing of a country they loved and the beginning of an unjustified war. I think Backspacer is a response to all that, primarily.

The other thing is that I don't think Pearl Jam are "content" at the end of Yield, or that they have gained peace of mind. I think the key words of Yield are optimism, hope, understanding, and generally beginning to see the forest from the trees. These thoughts, although they are prominent, didn't mean that Pearl Jam was never going to write a 'dark' album again. After all, shit happens, and without delving into personal matters we know the band went through some great trials in the first part of this decade. In the same way, I don't think the happy songs of Backspacer mean that Pearl Jam will never write a sad, dark song again, and that if they do it negates the lessons learned from that album.

your last point is a good one, for sure. And I agree with your political assesment/different themes assesment of Riot Act and S/T. I feel like Binauaral is different though. It's not an exceedingly political album beyond 4-5 songs. A nice chunk of the record but three of them reflect social commentary more than politics (Sleight of Hand and Soon Forget are acontextual in a way--there is something timeless about them in a way that isn't often the case with political music that responds to a particular set of circumstances), and I'm not sure what insignificance is responding to either. But beyond that the whole of Binaural is really tied together by this cold, isolated, claustrophobic mood. It's a very uneasy record its unease is not simply political or even social.

The themes on Yield really revolve around escape or acceptance, and that's not really where pearl jam had ever been as a band, other than this one record. Their catalogue is about confrontation and engagement, and for their to be such a dramatic shift in tone between two records, especially if you think (as I do) that both are internal, rather than external pieces that reflect more on the state of mind of the authors than the world surrounding them, makes me think that they're trying to convince themselves of something that is not really true on Yield.

Right, I'm gonna put this in the right thread:

Stip, it sounds like it might be a stretch but I'm gonna ask anyway as this just occurred to me.

Do you think that the hopeful, content, 'everything is OK with the world' songs on Yield are meant to be sarcastic, ironic? It's possible, isn't it?

I've already said that the negative, sarcastic and cynical songs on the album don't gel at all well (for me) with the hopeful and bright songs. But if the hopeful and bright songs were meant to be another approach at writing of the unease this band usually writes about... well, I like that idea. It's certainly true of Backspacer, where an on-the-surface cheery and happy album is actually not so cheery if you look deeper.

There isn't a single Yield song that strikes me as being outright happy or hopeful.

I'm not Stip, but I have an opinion about this point, so I'm gonna go for it and say that there is only one "hopeful, content, 'everything is OK with the world'" song on Yield: Faithfull. I don't think that track is meant to be taken as even slightly ironic. It's about staying with the one you love no matter what the world throws at you, that though society tries to keep you in a "box of fear", it doesn't matter, because the world doesn't revolve around the fear they peddle, it revolves around your love. Perhaps the second most sentimental, hopeful set of lyrics Eddie's ever written after The Fixer. In comparison, most of the rest of the album is about lonely people who dream of something more. One of the main themes of Yield is . . . um . . . yielding: isolating oneself from the rest of humanity in an effort to find peace. This theme of seperation and alienation comes up time and time again in almost every single song on the album. Given to Fly is thought by many to be a victorious song, but it's really not. It's about a man who wants to share something beautiful with the world which, in turn, responds ferociously, relegating the man to a "spot in the sky", never able to return to Earth for fear of prossecution, completely alone and trapped within the confines of his "gift". MFC is the same idea: the world sucks and the only way to be free is to leave it all behind but, unlike the man in "Given to Fly", this character can never leave the world behind. All she can do is drive in an attempt to "disappear". So, therefore, pretty much NOTHING is okay in this person's world. In All Those Yesterdays, the band romanticizes sleeping your life away, concluding by saying "you've got time to escape". And, throughout the album, Eddie makes it very clear how one can escape: by locking yourself away from everything, yielding to EVERYTHING. And that is why Yield is really pretty fucking depressing if you ask me.

Off topic, but I always had the feeling that Insignificance had some kind of root in the Seattle WTO protests of 1999. Does Insig have a SOTM?

I would agree, but Low Light seems to be a song of contentment, and many other songs are at least interested in finding peace and happiness, even if it's not yet found.

I can't really say what Low Light is about, but the imagery seems a bit dark to me. Even through the most beautiful melodies of the album, I get a very dark and desperate feeling.

Resignation perhaps leading to acceptance is the feeling I get. But I agree it has pretty dark overtones. I'm having it played at my funeral if I die tragically young.

No, you're not Stip, but this is a great answer. This is actually what I was getting at. The songs you've picked (and I've bolded) are often taken as positive, uplifting songs. But they're not. I think that that's what I was talking about. 'Sarcastic' was the wrong word then, but 'ironic' wasn't. These songs are ironic because sometimes they sell you something musically uplifting, but what you're actually getting is something quite dark. Backspacer does this as well. There is some clever darkness creeping into The Fixer, for sure.

What frustrated me about this apparently 'positive' record is that I don't want it to be positive, not because I'm an Emo but because if the consensus is that this album is positive and uplifting, then some of the songs on there seriously don't belong. I like that 'Faithful' seems to be the only fully uplifting song, because by being that, it seems to comment on all the others. It is their resolution, in a way. Like you say, it's about sticking with the world despite the struggle to be truly content anywhere one finds themselves.

So, thanks for that. I dare say the views in this thread may help me to appreciate more what I thought was quite a thematically inconsistent record.

I'm already really enjoying this thread.

I've always taken Yield as a pretty upbeat, optimistic album. It really coincided with Eddie growing up. Realizing that he can personally have happiness while still entrenching himself in issues that piss him off. To me, the yield is all about accepting what you cannot change, else you'll kill yourself in unhappiness.

Given to Fly goes about this by showcasing a great man at a personal level but putting him a aworld perspective of being a spot in the sky. That the world thinks of him as just a spot in the sky does not change his greatness. His happiness is found in who he is and not how he's viewed. Accepting/yielding to (and not caring about) what he cannot change.

that was a great post. I have little to add to it other than my broad agreement. I'm not sure even faithful is a fully 'happy' song, despite a positive message (which is not that much different than the message of a song like wishlist)

Harmless--I agree that this isn't an optimistic record but I'm not sure it is ironic either, which implies a certain degree of deliberation and intent that I'm not sure was there either. I think it's a deceptive record, but it's a case of the artists trying to decieve themselves--trying to convince themselves of truths they don't really believe.

Come on Digster--your turn!

Would you care to elaborate on this? (if you haven't done it yet elsewhere) Because this sounds to me like you're slightly crossing the line between "interpretation" and "I believe I know what was in their mind while they were making the album".

I have had issues with Yield since it first came out and I've never been able to put my finger on why. There's something very elusive about this album for me. When I read your post, stip, my insides jumped. What you wrote rings completely true to me and I think this is exactly where this album and I find our conflict. What a remarkable observation. I can't wait to explore this idea further.

I'm really looking forward to this thread and to Dig's analysis. As I said, this album and I haven't always gotten along. It should be fun to dive into it and wrestle this thing to the ground.

There's a hell of a lot of great stuff to talk about here, and I can barely keep up. I think Binaural is more of a political album then given credit for here. The majority of the songs on the album that exorcise anger the band has are primarily the political songs (Evacuation, Insignificance, Grievance, Rival, with Breakerfall being the one standout). I also think some of the songs you mentioned such as Sleight of Hand are notable because they are by no means first-person narrations. I don't necessarily mean that Eddie and the band are not putting themselves into the songs, or that they not writing from personal observations, but I think Binaural represented the most outward-looking Pearl Jam album up to that point (except for possibly Ten). Breakerfall is from the point of view of a confused young woman, Rival from the POV of a school shooter, Sleight Of Hand a lost cog in the machine. It was an album that often had them writing in the shoes of other personas, and it's what led to story songs like "Unemployable" and "Gone", when they had the desire to what songs with narrators that had a completely different life story. I don't think Yield is like that; I think we're hearing from the narrators themselves. Looking outward will bring different viewpoints, and I think that step forward led to the darker feeling of Binaural. So I do disagree that Binaural is an entirely internal work, although I'm sure internal factors shaped it.

However, I still think what you're saying only works (Yield being a lie) if the lesson learned at the end is one of contentment, that "everything is OK in the world." I agree with whoever said that they cannot think of a song on the album that is trying to say that (although I disagree with the notion that a song like Given To Fly is actually a dark song lyrically). Contentment is not the world to describe Pearl Jam here. I still think the best word to describe it is "understanding." You made the great point that the majority of Pearl Jam's music, especially up to the point Yield had been released, was declaring the need and value of "confrontation and engagement". I think Yield simply sees them re-defining what that means, both for themselves and everybody else. You certainly saw it in the interviews from when the album was released, along the lines of, "it's okay to be ourselves." They are dropping the defenses they had against the desires to hide, to drive off into the sunset, to find peace with a relationship. The fact that they are writing about the validity of trying to find contentment does not necessarily mean they are content. It means their eyes are wider than they had been. I'd even go as far to say as those extended viewpoints enabled them to write the songs of Binaural, and enabled them to completely step outside themselves in songs later on. They're still writing from a personal viewpoint here, but they have broadened their horizons.

I like that. Given To Fly isn't happy or depressing. It's in between. It's realist. It wants to be uplifting, but it's aware that the world will try to hold you down.

Rather than the albums that proceeded it and that are generally very focused inward, Yield really expands on the hints present in a few No Code tracks, and shows us a lyrical voice (voices?) looking outward, considering the world. It's less self-aware and more world-aware. (Even if at times it advocates running from the world.)

I want a put a pin in this and come back to it once digster posts his thoughts on Faithful. We need to talk about this because I'm not sure that Im' seeing/hearing what you guys are seein/hearing.