In Too Deep: My Journey With Pearl Jam (Part 5 - I’ll Stop Trying To Make A Difference, No Way)

I graduated from high school in May of 1998.

A long standing tradition: after class but before play rehearsals began (usually about an hour and a half), I’d go down to the empty cafeteria, insert my money, and get a small bag of Bugles and a Diet Coke from the vending machines.

On the final day of classes, as we gathered in what we called The Blue Room (a sort of lobby outside the auditorium) my friend gave me a graduation gift. It was a very used, very real, road sign. He’d taken it down himself and gifted it to me.

Of course, it was a Yield sign. And, of course, I hung it on my wall in my basement bedroom where it remained until I moved away to college at Kansas State in 2002.

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Pearl Jam’s Yield was released in February of 1998. I bought it the day it came out. Class ended at 3pm. I hopped in my car and raced to the Best Buy about 20 minutes north. I bought the CD. I didn’t listen to it though because I knew I didn’t have enough time to listen to the whole thing before I had to be at rehearsal. I wasn’t in the show, I was Assistant Directing a production of The Wizard of Oz. Really, I shouldn’t have ducked out to grab the album. I should have gone immediately to the Director’s office to start prepping rehearsal. But I was in the building by 4pm. The CD remained in my car (insert perfect Pete Martell impression here) “wrapped in plastic” and waiting in the glove compartment.

As soon as I got home I threw the disc into my CD player. I closed my bedroom door and dove in. I listened to the album, front to back, while taking in the liner notes. This was (and still is) my preferred first listening experience. It’s harder now that so much of my content is first consumed via Spotify. But when I have a physical record or CD or whatever in front of me, I still like to put it on, sit back, and devour the liner notes, the lyrics and artwork, as I listen.

48 minutes and 37 seconds later, I set the sleeve aside and listened to the CD player whine the end of the the disc. I thought, “that was awesome… now what?”

Yield is a great album. It contains some of my all time favorite Pearl Jam songs. But when it first dropped, I felt exactly neutral about it as an album. The great songs were instantly great. And there are genuinely no bad or “filler” tracks on the album. It’s as cohesive and elegant a piece of art as you’re likely to find. The artwork both accentuates and mystifies the album. It’s straight forward and enigmatic. “Who’s got the Brain of JFK / What’s it mean to us now” is blunt and curious, powerful in both it’s obvious impact and it’s nested meaning. “The whole world will be different soon” is Nostradamus: powerful in its potential, it’s scope, in the pull of prophecy. But also, it’s vague enough to be melodramatic and trite.

The entire album is a jumble of juxtaposition and contradiction. And I do not mean that as a slight. It’s what makes the album timeless, captivating, and relevant 20+ years later. But that also makes the album feel completely digested after one listen. It’s the album’s greatest trick: to be both timeless and disposable.

It’s famously known among music fans as a “return to form.” This has become a joke, a meme, among the Pearl Jam faithful. The music is more instantly accessible than the previous two records. The band feels ready, finally, for the fame thrust upon them when they burst unto the scene (again, the album maybe should have been titled, “Dichotomy”). Yield is more immediate and catchier, more (main)streamlined than both Vitalogy and No Code. Honestly, there’s an ease to it, a lack of aggression and angst that makes it maybe even more accessible than Vs. Which isn’t to say there isn’t some heavy lifting going on. “Do The Evolution” is as aggressive and nihilistic as Pearl Jam gets. “Faithfull” is razor sharp and toothy (even through it’s ethereal breeziness).

My issue with the album is that there isn’t much… depth. The album felt completely consumed after just one listen. Each song revealed itself immediately. The lyrics aren’t obvious but the aren’t opaque. Unlike the previous record, there seemed not only to be nothing to decode, but also, no pretense otherwise. Yield is fully formed. It is a fact. Boom! Here it is, take it or leave it.

After just one listen, I was ready for the next Pearl Jam album. And that was a strange and rattling experience. I called my friend Travis (you’ll remember him from previous installments of this series) and asked what he thought. He was far more excited than I was. He liked it much more than the last couple albums (though, over time, he would discover he didn’t reach for the record often; it didn’t have the replay value for him that the first three albums had). I didn’t know what to make of my reaction. I liked the record! I thought it was good, maybe even great. But I was still hungry. I wasn’t satisfied. I wanted more. Since I didn’t have another new Pearl Jam album to listen to, I put on No Code while I finished up my homework.

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The previous summer (summer of ‘97) I’d attended a Christian Youth Group retreat with a good friend of mine. He’d been with the church for years and he wanted me to come with him to this thing they called “Recharge.” It was essentially a long weekend out in the woods. There was camping, games, food, and bible study. Each night there was a service designed to bring us all closer to God.

I watched the kids around me overcome. There were tears and testimonials. A lot of people were “saved.” Kids said they heard Jesus talking to them. They went to the front of the room, weeping, waving their arms in the air, and accepted Christ. I felt something, too. I felt part of a group. I did not hear or feel Christ but I did feel connected. I did feel empathy. I did feel acceptance. And I liked it. This Youth Group was a community that I could see myself participating in, joyfully, selflessly.

I was never popular in high school. Even among my tribe, the theater kids, I was an outsider because I was a big fish. I got the leads. I was good at it. The faculty liked me and made allowances. There was jealousy on their part and there was arrogance on mine. But at Recharge it wasn’t about us. It wasn’t about me. I could believe, or at least believe in the idea of something bigger.

So, I joined the youth group. Every Wednesday we’d go to meetings and then hit up a nearby Taco Bell after to just hangout and discuss what we’d learned or experienced. To extend the fellowship. For a full year, this was a real part of the person I’d become.

Recharge ‘98 was a different experience. It felt… fake. There was a lot more drama and affectation. It felt like those that “found Jesus” only did so because it was expected. A real splintering happened. There were somehow “cool” kids and “nerds” at the fucking Christian Youth Group retreat! We played the same games. Sang the same songs. Hiked the same trails. And witnessed the same services. This time it felt hollow and rote, like a magic trick but somehow menacing. It felt like a willful deception. Whatever it was, it felt icky. I could feel myself pulling back, watching the show and seeing the practicality behind the scenes. What once was a promising, mystical wizard was now just a befuddled old dude behind a frayed green curtain.

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The final Youth Group meeting I went to was after the Recharge retreat in August of ‘98. It was like any other Wednesday evening. We sat in uncomfortable chairs in a loose semicircle while the Youth Pastor preached. However, the sermon that night was about Satan’s influence on us via Pop-Culture. One of the key examples used to illuminate this point was… wait for it…. Pearl Jam.

The Youth Pastor started quoting lyrics from Pearl Jam’s “Do The Evolution.” Apparently, the biggest issue was in the line “I can kill ‘cuz in God I trust.” Now, clearly, this is satirical, ironic. But the Youth Pastor took the line literally — not only as an indictment, but as BLASPHEMY!

I couldn’t take it. I stood up and began to argue. Whatever I’d gotten from being part of this church community was valuable but not as valuable as what I’d gotten from Pearl Jam. I explained what I thought the lyrics meant. I explained that Pearl Jam was in no way Satanic. I explained what the band meant to me, how their music had literally saved me in a way that Jesus had not (nor ever could). I did this while trying not to tear down the beliefs of those around me. I tried to be respectful. I’m not sure I succeeded. But I was angry.

After pleading my case and trying to debate the issue for well over twenty minutes, the Youth Pastor just looked at me with tremendous pity in his eyes. Shaking his head and putting his hand on his heart, he said to me, “Looks like you have a lot to think about. It hurts me to see you so lost. Everyone, let’s pray for Joe, pray for God’s grace and enlightenment.”

AND THEN THEY FUCKING DID!

They prayed for me right then and there. I’d love to tell you what happened next but I couldn’t wait around to find out. I walked out. There was no debating, no discussing, no getting through. So I left. And I never went back.

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So that’s the story of how Pearl Jam (and the album Yield specifically) helped me quit religion and find my own way. It turns out that Yield might be one of the most important albums of my life. It altered my path in profound ways. Maybe I was wrong about it. Maybe the album was much deeper and expansive than I’d given it credit for upon first listen.

These days, Yield is one of my favorite Pearl Jam albums. I rank it even above No Code. I reach for it often. It still breezes by when I listen but I also find myself quoting lyrics from various songs in my head frequently. It seems like I think about something from Yield almost every day. A song like “In Hiding” has certainly taken on new depths of meaning in a post-pandemic NYC.

But really, what I think about most, what holds the tightest grip on me from this era of Pearl Jam is a single. “Given To Fly” isn’t one of those songs that resonates with me like it does the majority of the fanbase. Like “Corduroy” it seems to mean a lot more to others than it does to me. But like “Corduroy” I still think it’s a solid song and I enjoy the hell out of it, especially when played live.

The “Given to Fly” single was released in December of 1997, two months before the album dropped. The US CD version contains two other songs: “Pilate” and “Leatherman.” “Pilate” in on the album proper but “Leatherman” is an outtake. I must have listened to this single a hundred times in anticipation of Yield. I may have an even deeper fondness for the single than the album proper. To this day “Leatherman” remains one of my favorite Pearl Jam outtakes, and a song that I long to hear live. I imagine, if they ever do play it while I’m in the room, I’ll have a wide smile on my face the entire time and maybe even a tear in my eye.

But that’s the magic of Pearl Jam. To paraphrase the late, great, Tom Petty (RIP!) … I love Pearl Jam, like some love Jesus / They do the same thing to my soul.

Yield is available on vinyl, CD or digitally pretty much anywhere you like to buy music.

Yield’s Top 3 Tracks: “No Way” “Low Light” “Do The Evolution”