Friday, October 1, 2010

Guided Tour of Binaural: The B-Sides and Outtakes

by stip


The B-Sides and Outtakes


I wanted to talk about these a bit before we actually finish Binaural. These were amongst the bands most prolific sessions (that we know about), and only the Ten sessions has produced as many songs perhaps good enough to include on the record itself. But Pearl Jam writes albums, not singles, and being a good song does not mean you necessarily make sense on a particular record.


I’m going to ignore the three instrumental pieces from Touring Band, since we’ve never heard complete songs. Likewise, while Anything in Between has a fun riff, it’s not clear that the band ever got around to finishing that one. Eddie’s vocals in particular feel like they’re placeholders. Had they finished it it does not really sound like it would fit in well on Binaural anyway.


So that leaves us with:


Sad
Hitchhiker
In the Moonlight
Education
Fatal
Sweet Lew
Puzzles and Games
Goodbye


Sad



Not including Sad was a mistake, and the only possible reason to justify leaving it off was the bullshit ‘we don’t want to release songs people would like’ garbage they were spouting back then. In three and a half minutes Sad manages to reproduce the coldness, the loneliness, the isolation, the loss of agency, the feeling of being trapped, and the uncertainty that runs through the rest of the record. That it manages to do all this in a fast song with a great riff is even more remarkable, as songs that make you want to move are empowering due to their speed if nothing else. This is also one of their most atmospheric fast songs they’ve ever written, and it’s impressive that they could duplicate the feelings in a song like Sleight of Hand, Nothing As It Seems, or Of The Girl in a hook laden pop song.


Sad could go anywhere on the record, and any song could be substituted for it. Personally I would have removed one of the first 3 tracks or Thin Air, but removing Thin Air makes an already dark album even darker.




Hitchhiker



Bracketing whether or not this song is any good [it’s not] it is far too playful and light for a record as weighted down as Binaural is. You could draw some thematic parallels between hitchhiker and the rest of the record but it is far too much of a mood killer to include




In The Moonlight


This is another song that, regardless of its overall quality of the song, doesn’t really belong on Binaural. It’s a bit too relaxed and casual and towards the end too rawk, and would stick out a bit too much on the album. I could see this song replacing evacuation, but Evacuation is doing stuff that’s more interesting lyrically. There’s a fairly interesting atmosphere too the song, but it’s too open. The atmosphere in songs like Of The Girl and NAIS are supposed to speak of closed off possibilities and lost chances. In The Moonlight tries to seduce—it speaks to the things that haven’t happened yet and that’s not really what Binaural is about.




Education


Like Sad, I think Pearl Jam probably made a mistake keeping this one off. The song is about the things we’re taught that make us strangers to each other and ourselves, the ways we’re socialized into alienation. It makes perfect sense to include this in a conversation that includes songs like Grievance, Rival, Insignificance, and Sleight of Hand. The thing is the placement on a song like this matters. The last lyric “I’m a seed wondering why it grows” speaks to all sorts of future possibilities. It’s an optimistic thought set to fairly defiant music. You either need this song to begin the record (which means the rest of the album will largely consist of shooting it down, cataloging all forces that stand between the seed and the light it needs to grow) or end it (even after all this there’s still the chance to start over). It all depends on what kind of story you want to tell.




Fatal


Like Education and Sad, Fatal fits really well, but I’m not sure it’s doing anything all that different. Does Fatal actually add to the record? Lyrically it’s hitting moments similar to Nothing As It Seems and God’s Dice, and none of these songs have lyrics that are appreciably any better or worse than the others. There’s an atmosphere of uncertain questing to it—it knows what questions to ask even if it has a reason to wonder whether or not it actually wants to receive the answers. It’s also fairly similar to Education (less ‘political’ and more ‘philosophical’ I suppose) but that didn’t make the record either. In the end I’d probably include it over a song like God’s Dice




Sweet Lew


This is really the emotional core of the record and I have no idea why they didn’t include it. Career sabotage I guess.




Puzzles and Games


As much as I like this song (and I think it’s a superior song to Light Years) Light Years is a better fit for the record itself. Puzzles and Games is a song about starting over or getting second chances, and that’s not really what Binaural is about. It would have made more sense on Yield.




Goodbye


I may be wrong about this, but I believe the ukulele songs that Ed wrote are all from this period, and if that’s the case Goodbye belongs on Binaural—certainly over Soon Forget, with its juvenile lyrics and uncomfortable sarcasm. This is simply one of the saddest songs they’ve ever written, and the aimlessness, the sense of loss and longing in the song, fit perfectly.





 So if I was going to retrack Binaural I think I’d want it to look a little something like this (I’m keeping it to 13 songs)


Education
Light Years
Evacuation
Sad
Nothing As It Seems
Of The Girl
Insignificance
Grievance
Rival
Sleight of Hand
Fatal
Parting Ways
Goodbye
(hidden track)



So I'd remove Breakerfall, God's Dice, Thin Air, and Soon Forget for Education, Sad, Fatal, and Goodbye, and resequence the record this way. And I would have been thrilled to discover Breakerfall on Lost Dogs