Unthought Known

All the thoughts you never see
You are always thinking
Brain is wide, the brain is deep
Oh, are you sinking?

Feel the path of every day
Which road you taking?
Breathing hard, making hay
Yeah, this is living

Look for love in evidence
That you're worth keeping
Swallowed whole in negatives
It's so sad and sickening

Feel the air up above
Oh, pool of blue sky
Fill the air up with love
All black with starlight

Feel the sky blanket you
With gems and rhinestones
See the path cut by the moon
For you to walk on

For you to walk on...

Nothing left, nothing left
Nothing there, nothing here...
Nothing left, nothing left
Nothing there, nothing left...
Nothing left, nothing left
Nothing there, nothing here...

See the path cut by the moon
For you to walk on
See the waves on distant shores
Awaiting your arrival

Dream the dreams of other men
You'll be no one's rival
Dream the dreams of others then
You will be no one's rival

You will be no one's rival...

A distant time, a distant space
That's where we're living
A distant time, a distant place
So what ya giving?
What ya giving?


From the guided tour of backspacer thread:

Alongside The Fixer and Amongst the Waves I’d argue that Unthought Known is one of Backspacer’s critical thematic moments—one of the songs that defines the record. Whereas The Fixer celebrates the moment of action, and Amongst the Waves rewards its subject with the blessing of a spiritual peace earned through a lifetime of struggle, Unthought Known is a song about promise and possibility, about not just experiencing the world as an agent, but of appreciating the world for what it is—a stage on which we are able to act, and through the process of action, define meaning, fulfill potential, and create ourselves. In this, Unthought Known is a more reflective exploration of the moment captured in The Fixer—it gets caught up in the same emotional space, but it takes the time to stop and look around, to marvel at the gift of agency.

The start of Unthought Known immediately brings to mine Wishlist, and while some of this is superficial similarity (the palm muted beginning) the tone is similar as well—the quiet determined desire to think about the world and your place in it, and follow those thoughts wherever they lead. As in Wishlist, this simple foundation is given its weight and gravity by the way the rest of the band colors in the empty spaces and gaps left by the melody—as if the melody is the act of thought and the musical flourishes the content. But where Wishlist (one of my favorite songs on Yield) stays in a quiet and sober place, Unthought Known quickly finds itself overwhelmed by the majesty of the universe, and the certainty that, for at least this moment, we belong. The band does a wonderful job here conveying this sense of wide eyed wonder and cosmic liberation with the rapid fire build and sustained climax—the way the instruments pile onto each other (the chiming guitars whispering their promises and 33, the sense of purpose conveyed by the drums at 48 seconds, the liberation offered by the piano at 1:05, and the way it all comes together to celebrate the joy and possibilities found within existence at 1:20. Even a year later my heart beats a little faster as the music sweeps us up into an expansive celebration of life itself and essentially maintains this high for essentially the rest of the song—we come down after the bridge, but only temporarily, and simply so the song can lift us up again.

In some respects it’s an exhausting ride. Unthought Known attempts to maintain a climax for basically the entire song (minus the brief build in the beginning and the cool down at the end), with little time for the listener to rest or come down. This is a surprising approach for a reflective song to take, and the music is not always up to it (or perhaps it is the production). Once the song reaches its high (the gems and rhinestones lyric) and plateaus there isn’t really a whole lot of variety and so the high has to sustain itself primarily on what is already there. It works great the first few listens, but once it’s familiar it starts to feel a little thin, like it exhausts itself. Given how much energy this song has to consume to occupy its space what we’re given needs to sound richer than it does. The simple production aims to capture the clarity and purity found in the moment of epiphany that Unthought Known chronicles, but it needs more. It’s at about 1:45 (after the ‘path cut by the moon lyric’ where the song enters what I suppose passes for its bridge) that the song starts to feel slightly empty. Not starved, mind you—but it definitely needs to sound fuller than it does.

Vocally and lyrically this is one of Eddie’s stronger performances on the record and, interestingly enough, one of the weaker vocal melodies, although the later isn’t as necessary because the former are effective. Eddie commits to the song right from the beginning, with a child like sense of wonder, enthusiasm, and joy, filtered through the experiences an older, wiser man returning to a place he never expected to see again. This is what Amongst the Waves (the chorus anyway) needed to sound like. Usually I find Eddie less persuasive on his advice/wisdom songs, where he tries to impart the listener with the lessons he’s learned from his own life and his own experiences. But it works quite well here because, unlike a song like Life Wasted or Love Boat Captain, he isn’t pleading and he isn’t telling us something he half expects us to reject. Instead he’s asking us to share a moment with him, and since Eddie’s power as a vocalist comes from his empathy, his willingness to commit to the experience he’s describing and invite us to do the same, this approach, and the final product, ends up being much more persuasive.

Lyrically some lines here are better than others (Eddie has always been an inconsistent writer, even when he’s on the top of his game) but the key lines here are great, and capture and communicate in provocative lines and stunningly simple images the spirit of the song.

It’s a slow start for sure, with the first four lines (‘all the thoughts you never see’ through ‘yeah this is living’) being pretty unmemorable, almost like he’s rushing through them to get to the parts of the song that really matter (it’s not surprising that the song takes off musically, vocally, and lyrically at the same place). But since this song (unlike most pearl jam anthems) captures a moment instead of telling a story the introduction isn’t as critical as it is on a song like Alive or Given To Fly.

The call to ‘look for love and evidence that you’re worth keeping’ is perhaps a little syrupy, but it’s a wonderful sentiment that cuts to the heart of what Pearl Jam’s music is about. They had always rejected the nihilism of their peers and believe that there’s a core within just about everyone that’s worthy of love and salvation. It’s easy to lose sight of that in a world full of institutions and social arrangements that separate us from the world, each other and ourselves, and so we need that reminder.

He does a great job running with his nature metaphors (and thankfully they aren’t all water based), capturing the mystery and majesty of our world (this song might not have been out of place during some of the landscape montages in Into the Wild), reminding us that we’re blessed to be a part of it, and that within it are unlimited possibilities if we’re prepared to reach for them. Obviously this is oversimplified and the band knows better, but at the same time this is the only way out of the dead end of Binaural, Riot Act, and even S/T—the moment of critique can show you what needs to change, but it cannot inspire you to actually make the change—that in order to act there needs to be both a way forward and a belief that this way points to a better world. And the images in Unthought Known are pregnant with that empowering sense of hope and possibility—the beauty of a pool of blue sky, the way in which love takes a void and fills it with light, the sense of oneness with the world that makes you think that the moon shines down to light YOUR way, that within the sound of the waves is secret knowledge only yu can understand, that the world holds its breath for you. The gems and rhinestones lyric is my favorite in this sequence—in part because it’s delivered with such ecstasy but in part because of the juxtaposition between the two—the way in which the world is going to offer you its gems, its tokens of objective value, and its rhinestones, it’s potentially valueless moments that we can make priceless by assigning value to them ourselves, and that the meaning the world has is up to us—that there may be no difference between gems and rhinestones. Again we can argue about whether or not this is true in reality, and it’s an important conversation to have, but it’s also important that on occasion we truly believe that there is no difference.

The nothing left bridge is a little tricky since it’s not clear what he’s talking about. Given the way Eddie exults in the delivery I take it that there’s nothing left of our burdens, nothing between us and the joy of pure experience and limitless possibility, especially given the lyrics that bookmark it.
The other high point of the song (and Eddie’s delivery draws attention to this) is the ‘dream the dreams of other men/you’ll be no ones rival’ lyric which, with a slight change, Eddie delivers twice in a row. It’s a great line, in part because of its ambiguity. What does he mean by rival? This is not the only way to interpret this line, but given the surrounding context I think of it as a challenge to build relationships with other people like the relationship with the universe that the rest of the song celebrates—that if we bind ourselves to each other, if we commit to the lives of the people around us, if we’re prepared to love them and learn from them, the barriers between us fall. We free ourselves from the artificial restraints that keep us from each other, and in the process, from ourselves—that we really discover who we are through this sense of communion with the world, with each other, and with ourselves. We complete who we are through the merging of the three.

The song comes down from its extended high to end on a sober note. This is the ideal. We’re not there yet. But wouldn’t it be wonderful if we were. Unthought Known lays out the possibility, at an emotional level, of a richer, fuller world—one that we belong to rather than stand in opposition of, and asks us to commit to that vision.

Unthought Known remains one of the great disappointments for me on Backspacer. I like the song, and there are parts of it I love, but here is where Pearl Jam is a victim of their commitment to song writing as inspiration as much as craft. There are a lot of great ideas here, some wonderful climaxes and terrific builds, but some lyrics really need to be rewritten (like the nothing left bridge and the first two verses), and while the simplicity of the music worked great when this was an acoustic solo number, the band needs to find more things to do to fill it out so it can sustain its mood at the volume they're playing at. It's clear from the live performances they want this song to be a Given To Fly/Alive class anthem, and while I think it had that potential, it needs more work. And it's not a Pearl Jam by the numbers problem like Amongst the Waves. PJ doesn't have many songs that sound like Unthought Known. It just needs thickening. it's a tasty broth with some nice ingredients but a little too thin.

Lyrics like 'feel the sky blanket you with gems and rhinestones' and 'dream the dream of other men and you'll be no one's rival' are the kind of punchy one liners Eddie can write really well. I wish he'd take the time to fill this song, especially given the musical structure. Every lyrical nugget needs to be gold for this to work.

I dont think eddie and the band spend as much time on this song as much as you did on your write up.


This song grew stale rather quickly. I really do enjoy backspacer but amongst the waves and this tune really ruin the flow for me.

I feel like Eddies songs lately are more written as solo pieces rather than something he wants the band to expand on. Maybe his songs have always been this way. Undecided. The band rarely adds anything to his songs (man of the hour especially)and most would work better as an ed solo project. Are they uninterested or do they just not spend enough time anymore? Three guitars churning out the same chords, adding little to no layers, have been the theme of eds tunes lately.

As i type that, speed of sound keeps creeping into mind and reminds me why I really enjoy that tune. They spent a little more time on it (freeking lasers) and added some thoughtful instrumentation. Its much different than the solo version, unlike Unthought known.

I agree with strat on this wholeheartedly, Eddie rarely seems to bring songs to Pearl Jam that the band can actually add anything to of late. Stone and Mike may as well not even be playing on this song, everyone's just strumming along the same chord progression. Even Mike's brief lead parts feel perfunctory, they don't add or subtract anything - they're just there.

Maybe this song would've worked better as a solo piece? I think I could really say that for all of Ed's songs on Backspacer except Gonna See My Friend (and even that could easily work with just one pounding rhythm guitar as a three-piece rock song) but this song especially so.

I agree with stip that it sounds thin and, to me, unsatisfying - but not because it needs further thickening, I think it's just not a song that lends itself to a band arrangement. I actually think it would sound more complete if it were stripped back but it might just be it's not a particular strong song.

now that you mention it i did like the solo version i heard before the album came out. really can't stand the full band version, though.

next stop...

It's funny that the most interesting part of this song is the keyboard played by Brendan in the studio version and all-but-omitted by Boom in the live versions.

Sometimes I really like this song and think it's 5 stars, others I'm meh about it and would give it a 3.

I also would like to point out that the rest of the band add about as much to this song as they do to "Betterman". A lot of Eddie's songs are just like that.

I thought about that after I posted. Very true. I guess those songs are just better maybe?

There are very few PJ songs where Eddie shares writing credit on the music with another member. He almost always brings in complete songs, or maybe he's a lot less willing to tinker with them than the others.

Or maybe the rest of the band are less willing to fiddle about with his songs.

This used to be one of my favorites on Backspacer, but now I'm ranking it 2 stars. If I was in a better mood it might get 3.

I think this is a good song, atmospheric in places, but as a whole, doesn't get me excited. I wish it did. It should. Platy's right, I don't buy the whole 'no-one added anything' thing. I think people forget how many old songs don't need full band accompaniment either. I'd put 'Daughter' in that category. The drums and rhythm section play beautifully, but is it all needed? Not really. In the case of Unthought Known, the structure of the whole needs to be more interesting; it's nothing to do with what's added or not taken away. I'd argue the same for 'Gone' on S/T. I've no problem with what the band added. It's nice, but it's no more than 'nice' because the song's structure is not very interesting.

Gone is a great parallel with this song. Jorge is right, the band really don't add much to Better Man or Small Town or many other Ed songs - I'm guessing it's just the way he writes.

I think the comment about the underlying structure being weak here is pretty spot on - no matter what the band played, I think it would've been equally thin sounding. Better Man doesn't suffer the same fate because perhaps it's just a better song and structured to leave spaces for the band to fill in? I don't know, but it works for me and this doesn't (nor does Gone).

Yep. I just think Betterman is a better song. It's got a great melody, in both chorus and verse; beautiful chords; dynamics. These ones don't, they're blander.

yeah betterman works because it's a tremendous song, regardless of who wrote what or how many people were involved.

Ah the ol' tremendous song trump card.

I listened to the studio version of this again for the first time in a while.

My first reaction was that this is one of the few songs to benefit from being sped up live.

betterman is perfect