In Too Deep: My Journey With Pearl Jam (Part 6 - It’s Not In My Past To Presume)

I day after my 20th birthday, Pearl Jam released a new single. It was a five minute atmospheric piece by Jeff Ament called Nothing As It Seems. The song was very much in keeping with Peal Jam’s penchant for dropping atypical singles. While certainly not as baffling and unexpected as No Code’s lead single, Who You Are, Nothing As It Seems was still something of a shock. However, the thing I most remember about hearing the song for the first time? It had a guitar solo!

My love for Nothing As It Seems was immediate. The lyrics are enigmatic in an inviting way. The sound of the song is somehow uplifting and treacherous at the same time. Hearing Eddie Vedder, the prince of baritone, sing a line (that he didn’t write) like “It’s nothing like your baritone” makes me want to cry. The song is blistering in its drone. “All that he needs, it’s home.”

Holy shit.

It was such a wonderful gift, Nothing As It Seems. Dropping the day after my birthday made if feel like a private gift for me. Especially after having struggled somewhat with Yield. I was certain this was destiny. Binaural would be my favorite Pearl Jam album. How could it not be?

Binaural was released May 16th 2000. I was in school at Johnson County Community College. The morning of the 16th, before class, I drove to Best Buy to purchase the album. Unlike the previous records, I decided to start the album on the drive from the store to school, even though I knew I wouldn’t be able to finish before class started. I listened to the first three songs: Breakerfall, Gods’ Dice, and Evacuation.

These are arguably the three worst songs on the record.

It wasn’t a great first impression. The songs felt half-finished. The lyrics were either opaque or cheesy. The sound of the thing had a kind of lifeless quality — hollow and far away.

Three songs in. That was as far as I got before I arrived at school and had to put the album away. I decided not to listen to any more of the album until I could finish it. And if I’m honest, I was also hesitant and a little worried. Was I about to experience a bad Pearl Jam album?

Binaural gets way better after that opening run. Light Years is fantastic and the run of songs from track five (Nothing As It Seems) through eleven (Sleight of Hand) is outstanding. Thin Air was the song my wife and I walked down the aisle to after being pronounced husband and wife! These songs (Thin Air, Insignificance, and Sleight of Hand) are still to this day are top 10 Pearl Jam songs for me. I adore them.

Overall, I liked Binaural when it first dropped. After a worrying start, the album came together and largely redeemed itself. I think the closing tracks are weaker than I’d like. The album starts wonky and ends wonky but everything in between is wonderful and varied and nuanced. However, for a long time (until 2009’s Backspacer, actually) it was my least favorite Pearl Jam album.

It’s grown on me a lot since. Those first three tracks, especially. I’m still an album guy. I prefer listening front to back rather than skipping around. That’s still true of Binaural. As such I’ve had a lot of time and a lot of time spent with every song. It’s enough to reveal the quirks and lovely nooks in each.

The overall sound and production is probably the thing that’s aged the best about the album. It no longer sounds hollow and far away to me. It sounds like infinite space. Like every possibility. Like bathing in light and drying in the open air. The album is much warmer than I feared it would be upon first listen. And though it’s dark, like the best Pearl Jam, it’s the light in unexpected places that allows for the darkness.

On Rival, maybe the darkest song on the record, Ed says “and this nation’s about to explode.” And every time I hear it, I shiver a bit. It’s profound and haunting. Even a little scary. The album ends with a break-up song; devastating in it’s easy frankness. Ed’s delivery in Parting Ways is neutral, almost emotionless — which, coming from the guy who sang Release is really something. But the album also contains lines like: “we were but stones, your light made us stars,” and “how to be happy and true is the quest we’re taking on together.”

And that’s purest Pearl Jam. The search. The observation and acknowledgement of difficulty and ugliness but all the while keeping head up and eyes wide and focused on the search for empathy and humanity. The quest for the best of us. And Binaural is an important, necessary part of that forever quest.

Others have written tomes about the lyrical content of Binaural. I’ll leave that to my betters. I’ve said enough already there. And I’m not educated enough to dive into the music theory or compositional discussion of this album. But there is a ton out there in that arena as well. This series isn’t about the albums themselves as much as my experiences with them. And to that end, Binaural is an album that took a long time to get me. In that way, though it sounds light years away from their first album, it actually has much in common with Ten. Which isn’t something I’ve ever really thought about in those terms before… huh.

These days I rank Binaural in the middle of the pack. Of eleven albums, I’d slot Binaural at #5. Not back for an album that used to live at the bottom of the pile.

Today is Binaural’s birthday. To celebrate I’ll be listening to the album on vinyl. Front to back, of course. And I’ll smile like an asshole when Eddie Vedder sings “But only love can break her fall!” And I’ll be grateful all over again for the loves in my life. For my love of Pearl Jam.

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

Yield’s Top 3 Tracks: “Sleight of Hand” “Insignificance” “Thin Air.”