Yield - Side B

“How cool to have a yield sign? When there’s nothing to yield to.” - Jeff Ament

Hi Son,

Pearl Jam released a VHS on August 4, 1998 that was a music documentary on the making of “Yield” called “Single Video Theory.” They filmed the documentary over a three-day period in November 1997 in Seattle. It’s a really cool and somewhat intimate look at how the band worked together on recording “Yield.” It starts off with them arriving at the studio and clocking in one-by-one to the closer of the record, “All Those Yesterdays.” The film is not very long at 45 minutes, but it does provide a lot of insight on the process of making “Yield.” I do own a copy of “Single Video Theory” on DVD and when you’re older will make you watch it! Oh man, the groans I will get when you are older regarding all things Pearl Jam that I will make you listen to and watch!

Side B of “Yield” is a little more eclectic than Side A. The first track, “Do the Evolution,” is one of their better known songs in the entire catalog. The music was written by Stone and it is definitely one of the harder songs that I can remember him composing. Ed’s vocals are about as loud and aggressive as any song he’s growled to. The lyrics (also the entire album of “Yield”) were heavily influenced by Ishmael, a novel written by Daniel Quinn in 1992. I honestly cannot go into the plot of the novel, since I’ve never read it but the premise of the book is that it reveals several accepted speculations about modern society. The beginning is a blast of sound with one of their most recognizable guitar riffs with Ed howling toward the end of the riff. Then Ed’s vocals are rigid and intense.

I'm ahead, I'm a man
I'm the first mammal to wear pants, yeah
I'm at peace with my lust
I can kill 'cause in god I trust, yeah
It's evolution, baby, yeah

The words suggest that man is destroying the Earth. Before humans, there was not such a destructive force on the planet. Stone has a very memorable guitar riff during what could be interpreted as the chorus. It’s a fairly monotone riff, but it fits so perfectly within the theme of the song. The build up of this song really hits a fierce crescendo when Ed begins to scream the following into the mic.

I am ahead, I am advanced
I am the first mammal to make plans, yeah
I crawled the earth, but now I'm higher
2010, watch it go to fire

This is a song of theirs that continues to grow on me. One because I love the music, the aggressive vocals and the lyrics. The other reason why it grows on me is because I keep getting more cynical about humanity as I continue to age. Especially the country we were both born in. The last 10 years (especially 6 of the 10) have been very damning and I fear are accelerating the theme of this song. “Do the Evolution” provides a decent release of frustration.

The last thing of note about this song is the music video. I may have touched on this when going over “Vitalogy” and “No Code,” but I’ll rehash just in case. The band did not produce a music video while making and releasing “Vs.”, “Vitalogy” and “No Code.” That spanned from about 5 years until “Yield” came out. “Do the Evolution’s” music video was intricately planned out. The video itself was all animation. Ed reached out to Todd McFarlane who was a comic book creator best known for his work on “The Amazing Spiderman” and “Spawn.” The band, McFarlane and a team of artists took a very ambitious 12-week timeline to create what was a Grammy-nominated music video for Best Music Video, Short Form in 1999. In 2021, Joe Pearson released a book on the making of the video called “Art of Do the Evolution.” It’s a very thorough look at how the ideas and animation came together for the 4-minute video, which illustrated the lyrics that Ed had written for the song so perfectly.

Now we come to a filler track. Even though this is the second track on Side B, it’s my unofficial “intermission” of the record. I book end “Brain of J.” to “Do the Evolution” and the tracks after it “MFC” to “All Those Yesterdays.” If you look at the track listing on the back of the sleeve, all you will see is a red dot for the title. On the official Pearl Jam website, it’s called “Untitled.” This track was written by Jack. It’s the only track on “Yield” written by Jack. The music is best described as Jack playing at a fast tempo and then slowing down when the lyrics “We’re all crazy. We’re all crazy and were.” are sung at a high falsetto. It’s only 1:06 of gibberish, however like most of their songs that I used to skip this is another that has grown on me. I think my tolerance for “Red Dot” has increased mainly because the track is only a little over 1 minute.

Then we start my second half of the album with “MFC.” "MFC” is an acronym for Mini-Fast Car. This track gives me the image of trying to frantically drive away from someone chasing me. The intro guitar riff is what makes me feel like a new chapter of the album has started. The rest of the song is fun and fast-paced. It’s a nice 3-minute shot of adrenaline. If you’re keeping count we’re now on Track 10, “Low Light,” which I call the sister track to “Pilate.” I think “Low Light” is somewhat of a callback to Pontius Pilate being exiled and now alone living on a mountain with only his dog. The lyrics in “Low Light” are extremely reflective and suggest the subject is trying to understand what is real and what is fake based on the sounds and sights around him. It’s a nice contrast in style from “MFC” and “Do the Evolution” given those two songs really can get you amped up.

Now we come up to “In Hiding.” This song cuts deep for me. Until 8 years or so ago, I really did not appreciate the meaning of this song. The music always seemed cool and the lyrics were meaningful. However, I really never thought deeply about what this song could actually help me represent. The inspiration for “In Hiding” was from the writings of Charles Bukowski. Bukowski had a pretty crass and edgy way about the way he wrote. This was probably best illustrated by the underground newspaper columns he wrote called “Notes of a Dirty Old Man.” Sean Penn once told Ed about a saying that Bukowski told him personally.

“sometimes he just has to check out for a few days—no people, no nothing. So he goes in hiding, then he gets back and has the will to live once again. Maybe because society takes you down. For all the good things we offer each other, sometimes we beat each other down.”

The thought of wanting to escape from everyone and everything comes and goes with me often. A coping mechanism that works for me is to find solitude in times of high anxiety. I have a tendency to spiral when I feel like a situation is piling higher and higher on me. There’s always been this fear of me being pinned down and then getting suffocated. I need peace and in a wide-open space. That’s how “In Hiding” speaks to me. It also helped define depression that I believed I’ve managed for most of my life. I wasn’t diagnosed until I took the liberty of getting help after your mother’s stroke. The words below describe me so well.

I swallowed my words to keep from lying
I swallowed my face just to keep from biting
I swallowed my breath and went deep, I was diving, I was diving
I surfaced and all around me was enlightened

The music to “In Hiding” is fantastic as well. It was written by Stone. If you watch “Single Video Theory,” (remember you will watch it someday) it talks about how Stone recorded the main guitar riff on a micro-cassette recorder. What’s interesting to me about how “In Hiding” is featured on the documentary is as-if it is the climax of the 45-min flick. The documentary plays the song in full (there are some tracks it does not play them in their entirety) and shows a split screen into 4 quadrants giving camera shots of the individual band members playing and Ed singing. No other song gets this treatment. The last thing I’ll mention is that your old man was a guest on a podcast discussing this particular song and the epiphanies I had. I won’t make you listen to this (or will I).

Now we’re finally on the home stretch. The penultimate track is “Push Me, Pull Me.” Another automatic skip back in the day for me. The track is almost as weird as “Red Dot,” but is about four times longer. Ed’s vocals are in spoken word for the most part and there are a lot of random sound effects playing in the background as the band is playing the music. Again, the track as all of the others (No Way, Red Dot) has grown on me to where I do not skip it any longer. It’s a pretty cool track and in some ways is placed in the perfect spot of the track list. The closer of “Yield” is one that I have vacillated on calling my favorite closer of any Pearl Jam record (competes with “Indifference”). It’s a song that starts out pretty mellow with bluesy sounding guitar riff to Ed’s lyrics. It continuously ramps up to where Mike ends up playing a really awesome solo. His solo pretty much outros the track with the rest of the band singing the words “all those yesterdays” until it fades out. For a song that I often consider my favorite closer, I don’t have a lot to say about it other than it’s a great way to finish out what is my favorite track list of any Pearl Jam record.

The last thing I leave on this essay is a quote Ed said about the naming of the record “Yield” and the reset the band seemed to give themselves coming into the making of it. I like to think you can sub-out “music” in the last sentence with whatever means a lot to you.

“Let’s say that hypothetically speaking, the title does mean something...You can fight so much, and then you have to think, ‘What are the real battles?’ ‘What’s really important?’ You get to a certain point, and it’s really hard to remember what music is and to remember what drives you.”

Love,

Dad

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