Vs. (Pearl Jam Album) - Music and Lyrics

Music and Lyrics

The album featured a much looser and more raw sound compared with the band's debut album, Ten. Ament said, "When we made Vs., our second record, I remember thinking, 'Man, I wish our first record sounded like this.' I thought it was more direct, more powerful." Besides the heavier songs, the album features two acoustic ballads in "Daughter" and "Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town". A few of the songs incorporate elements of funk, including "Animal", "Blood", and "Rats". McCready stated that it wasn't that the band "sat down and decided to be funky," but rather it came from the band "exploring different directions and combining our influences." Paul Evans of Rolling Stone said "'Animal', 'Daughter' and 'Blood'...are songs of a kind of ritual passion, tapping into something truly wild." In a 2002 interview, Gossard said, "We got our heavyosity out on that record."

The songs on the album tackle personal as well as social and political concerns. Vedder said that "you write what comes to you... You try to reflect the mood of the songs." Topics on the album include child abuse ("Daughter"), gun culture ("Glorified G"), police racism ("W.M.A."), and the media ("Blood"). "Daughter", "Dissident", and "Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town" are three storytelling songs. "Daughter" tells the story of a child who is abused by her parents because they do not understand her learning disability; "Dissident" tells the story of a woman who takes in a political fugitive; and "Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town" tells the story of an old lady who has been stuck in a small town her whole life.

"Glorified G", a song mocking gun enthusiasts, was inspired by an incident in which Abbruzzese told the band he had just bought two guns which sparked a conversation about guns within the band. "W.M.A." was inspired by an incident that happened outside Pearl Jam's rehearsal studio in which Vedder got into an altercation with a group of police officers who hassled a black friend of his but ignored him. Vedder said that "Rearviewmirror" is about being "in a car, leaving...a bad situation." Vedder stated that "Rats" is about the idea that "rats are probably a hell of a lot more admirable" than humans. "Leash" was written about the same girl that the Ten song "Why Go" is about. Regarding "Indifference", Vedder said it is about " do something to make some other peoples' lives better than they are, even if it means going through hell. Three Faces of Me."