One of PJ’s signature breakthrough tracks, this classic-rock heartbreaker is a memorized piece of the Gen X tapestry for every pre-emo grunge kid to every tribal-tattooed bro from here to the moon.
As Eddie explained at the band’s 2.21.98 show in Maui, the guy says “fuck the streets, fuck the newspapers, fuck my telephone bills… fuck everything I’m gonna go live in a tree.” Featuring Jack Irons’ remarkable tumbling percussion, the track is a reclamation of innocence, a departure from that which desensitizes us to the true nature of our lives.
This one’s about a guy who’s grown tired of the mundacity of the rat race. The sweetest love song to vinyl one could ask for, wrapped in a punk-spaz freakout. A goofball song the band all but disavowed for years, it captures the playful energy of PJ’s early days, complete with chainsaw sound effects and the tragic news that McCready’s been eaten. This redheaded stepchild of a song crosses a crazy real-life tour bus driver with Jeffrey Dahmer. “It starts out slow and then it gets a little larger and a little larger and then it breaks and then it comes down again.” “I just kind of imagined it as sort of a wave in an ocean,” McCready explained. The soul-soaring spirit of 1998’s Yield hits a high mark of uplifting optimism on this track, and it’s no accident that the melody mirrors Led Zeppelin’s “Going to California” – the tale is a mix of messianic symbolism spun into what could be interpreted as an autobiographical streak of Ed’s own journey to California in his younger years. It’s also helped by the anxiety-spawning fatal finality in the solo, red-lining a delicate engine before easing the song out again somberly. The songwriter, bassist Jeff Ament, attributes this to some darker hidden childhood memories that began to surface in more recent years. The sparse nature of this darkly melancholic Binaural gem leaves a great deal open to interpretation.
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