Composition
Overall, Yield resembles the straightforward rock approach of the band's early work. Gossard said, "The songs were a little bit more structured. I don't know if it was poppier, but it seemed more professional." O'Brien noted that during the Yield sessions, the band made a conscious effort to create more accessible songs. Tom Sinclair of Entertainment Weekly stated that the band has "turned in an intermittently affecting album that veers between fiery garage rock and rootsy, acoustic-based ruminations. Perhaps mindful of their position as the last alt-rock ambassadors with any degree of clout, they've come up with their most cohesive album since their 1991 debut, Ten." "Given to Fly", the album's first single, was noted for its similarity to Led Zeppelin's "Going to California" from the 1971 album, Led Zeppelin IV.
Lyrically, Yield continued with the more contemplative type of writing found on No Code. Vedder said that while "in the past we got really angry and we cried out against many things in our songs", he considered that when "you become an adult you have to express your energy in a different way, more calm." This led to songs that while not eschewing "the bad side of life", ended up "facing it from a more positive point of view, looking for a way to solve it. In the past we said: what a shit, this stinks, that sucks, everything sucks... Now it's time to say: stop, let's look for a solution, let's be positive." Several songs on the album were inspired by literary works, including Mikhail Bulgakov's novel The Master and Margarita ("Pilate"), Daniel Quinn's novel Ishmael ("Do the Evolution"), and the writings of Charles Bukowski ("In Hiding"). Gossard wrote the lyrics for the songs "No Way" and "All Those Yesterdays", and Ament, making his first lyrical contributions to a Pearl Jam album, wrote the lyrics for the songs "Pilate" and "Low Light". Ament said, " watch Eddie put his heart into singing lyrics that I wrote, was an experience I can't put into words."
Gossard said "No Way" expresses the idea that people just need to live "and quit trying to prove something." According to Vedder, "Given to Fly" is about "rising above anybody's comments about what you do and still giving your love away," "Do the Evolution" is about "someone who's drunk with technology, who thinks they're the controlling living being on this planet," "MFC" takes place in a car and is about "getting the fuck out of a problem," and "In Hiding" is about "taking a fast from life." Ament said that "Pilate" concerned a question he was asking himself, dealing with a recurring dream Ament had with being old sitting with his dog on the porch, while "Low Light" was the answer, and that it deals with "a kind of gratefulness at finding that place of calm and peace at my center and getting a glimpse of the person I could choose to be."
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“Every thing in his composition was little; and he had all the weaknesses of a little mind, without any of the virtues, or even the vices, of a great one.”
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“Modern Western thought will pass into history and be incorporated in it, will have its influence and its place, just as our body will pass into the composition of grass, of sheep, of cutlets, and of men. We do not like that kind of immortality, but what is to be done about it?”
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