Music and Lyrics
While Vitalogy had shifted away from the earlier albums' accessible compositions and polished production, No Code represented a deliberate break from Ten's stadium sound, favoring experimental ballads and noisy garage rock songs. It stood out with its emphasis on subtle harmony ("Off He Goes"), Eastern influences ("Who You Are"), and spoken word ("I'm Open"). Irons lends a tribal drum sound on the songs "Who You Are" and "In My Tree". Irons stated, "To turn my drum music into a song is pretty challenging, but the guys have been really supportive of me doing it, and we've worked some things into a few songs." Vedder said, "We realized that we had an opportunity to experiment." David Browne of Entertainment Weekly stated that "No Code displays a wider range of moods and instrumentation than on any previous Pearl Jam album."
The lyrical themes on the album deal with issues of spirituality, morality, and self-examination. Vedder said, "I think there's a little self-examination in those songs, something that a lot of my friends are going through too, as they approach 30." Ament said, "In some ways, it's like the band's story. It's about growing up." The lyrics of "Hail, Hail" refer to two people in a troubled relationship struggling to hold it together. Vedder has said that he wrote the song "Off He Goes" about himself and how he is a "shit friend," adding, "I'll show up and everything's great and then all of the sudden I'm outta there..." "Lukin" is about the "pretty intense stalker problem," Vedder faced during the mid-1990s. "Around the Bend" was written by Vedder as a lullaby that Irons could sing to his son.
The lyrics to "Smile" are taken from a note that Dennis Flemion of The Frogs hid inside Vedder's notebook while he was onstage performing. The words used in the note are taken from the Frogs songs "This Is How I Feel" and "Now I Wanna Be Dead". Flemion is given credit in the vinyl, but the credit is inexplicably absent from the CD version. The lyrics to "Red Mosquito" were inspired by the events surrounding Pearl Jam's June 24, 1995 concert at San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, which happened on the same day Vedder was hospitalized due to food poisoning. Vedder only made it through seven songs and the band was forced to cancel the remaining dates of the short tour that it was on. For the first time on a Pearl Jam album a band member other than Vedder contributed lyrics, with Gossard writing the lyrics to "Mankind". Gossard also sang lead vocals on the track.
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