The No Code page........

.. Let us crack the codes.....	A new polaroid-gallery with explainations!
Lyrics	The band in studio

General Facts

Released August 27, 1996

Assistant Engineers: Matt Bayles, Jeff Layne, Caram Costanzo

Other facts:

10/5/96, in Charleston, SC, Eddie chose to share with us a little bit about the song Present Tense:

Well, OK, settle down ...So anyways, Mike has this great music & I ... he asked if i wanted to put words to it and i just needed anything ... anything to make me think ... just anything to make me think of anything ... just a starting point, where to begin so I thought of Pete Townshend, I took his initials and this one is called "Present Tense."

The song Lukin refers to Matt Lukin, a bandmember in the band Mudhoney. The song as Eddie has described it is just about Matt's place. In concert, Eddie has joked about how maybe Lukin should have been called "Can't find A Better Kitchen", a poke at the song Better Man.

September 24, 1996, Columbia, Maryland Eddie said this before playing Red Mosquito

"There's a song called Song X..a record called Mirrorball...you hear that one? There is a song called Song X...this is its baby brother. It's called Red Mosquito."

Charlotte, NC...10/4/96 Eddie said this before Habit:

"I wrote this song about a guy named... oh I'm not going to say his name...he's a sixty-something-year old who thinks like he's a thousand and sixty. But you know, it's good that someone's got me so hot and bothered because this song is not easy to sing if you're just in a good mood. It's called Habit."

When the band returns for the final encore, however, the musicians throw out the night's high-energy set list and close with a sweet, uplifting tune from "No Code." The song--"Around the Bend"--means a lot to Vedder, and he doesn't know enough Spanish to introduce it that way, so he resorts to English.

"This one's a lullaby," he says of the song, which he wrote for drummer Irons' infant son. "So, go home and sleep peacefully . . . have nice dreams."

(Barcelona concert 1996)

Of the searching, introspective tone of such songs as "Off He Goes" and "Present Tense," Vedder says, "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."

Listening to Vedder, Ament nods.

"Except for a few moments on the first record, a lot of times Eddie's lyrics were just stories to me," the bassist says. "I knew he was a great writer and there was a lot passion behind the lyrics, but I didn't always relate to them. On this record, it's like my own thoughts are in the songs. . . . In some ways, it's like the band's story. It's about growing up."

(From L.A. Times interview december 1996)

Jack Irons complicated beats set the rhythmic tone of No Code, from the moody drum circles of "In My Tree" to the Eastern swirl of "Who You Are." "We realized that we had an opportunity to experiment," says Vedder of recording with Irons. "For instance, everyone has written that `Who Are You' was obviously inspired by my collaboration with Nusrat, but that's not where it came from."

"I'd been playing that [drum pattern] since I was eight," says Irons. "It was inspired by a Max Roach drum solo I heard at a drum shop when I was a little kid."

"When I first heard that song, I was totally blown away by it," raves McCready. "I thought it was the best song we had ever done."

(SPIN-interview january 1997)

""Making No Code, was all about gaining perspective."- Eddie Vedder

"Smile is the happiest song we know, and this is for you" Eddie before playing Smile in Poland 1996.

JWB (mudshark@intergrafix.net) says:

The Frogs are linked to the song "Smile" in three visible ways:

A) "Smile" is dedicated to Dennis Flemion on the label of the 96 xmas single.

B) That's Dennis's handwriting on the back of the "Smile" No Code lyric polaroid. It is a page from Eddie's notebook.

C) Jimmy Flemion wrote a song called "This Is How I Feel". Those are the lyrics that Dennis scribbled in Eddie's notebook. Eddie "borrowed" these lyrics for the song "Smile". The phrase "I miss you already" is not from the Frogs song. It is an extra line that Dennis added in the notebook.

So basically, Jimmy Flemion wrote the lyrics to the song "Smile". Dennis inspired the song by scribbling his brother's lyrics in Eddie's notebook.

To buy the Frogs tape "Jim's Songs #2" which contains the beautiful song "This Is How I Feel", you can go here and The Frogs will personally send you a copy... http://www.execpc.com/~mobark/mailorder2.htm

"If you've got a spotlight, I think he's right over there, his name's Dennis Frog. He wrote me a letter once, and I turned it into a song...and it's called 'Smile.'" --Ed speaking right before Smile on 6/27/98

From Synergy Rumour Pit; March 1999:

" I was wondering if you knew if the lyric card for Smile off No Code was taken from an actual letter that the band received?

A: Dennis Flemion of The Frogs wrote that in Ed's journal. That's a copy of the page. "