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."