Songfacts®:

• "Nothing As It Seems" was written by Pearl Jam bassist Jeff Ament, who played an upright bass (double bass) on the track. In an interview with MTV, explained the meaning.
  
  "It's a little bit reflecting on where I came from," said Ament. "I grew up in really rural area in Northern Montana, and 'Nothing As It Seems' is looking back at that. I think until two or three years ago, I looked back at my childhood as being a fairly utopian situation where I had the freedom to ride my bike around town when I was five years old, and my parents didn't have to worry about anybody taking me and killing me or whatever. In the last couple of years, there have been some things that have kind of allowed some darker things to come to the surface of my childhood, seeing things that I had kind of selectively forgotten for my own mental health or whatever. I had just seen Affliction and I had just read Nine Below Zero by Kevin Canty, all very kind of rural things that unearthed a lot of stuff. 'Nothing As It Seems' is just kind of what came out. I'm just now starting to actually really analyze what I was talking about, because I still don't really have a grip on that."
• Jeff Ament wanted a Pink Floyd vibe on this song, so guitarist Mike McCready came up with an unusual sound using a Fender effects pedal from the 1960s. It's the kind of analog drone that isn't easy to replicate, and when the pedal broke, McCready had to change how he played it at concerts.
• This was the first single from Binaural, Pearl Jam's sixth album. It made #49 in the US, their first entry since "Last Kiss," their highest charting song, went to #2 a year earlier. That one happened by accident: The band sent it to their fan club members as the annual holiday gift, but radio stations got a hold of it and put it in rotation.
• Like some other songs from the album, including "Rival" and "Soon Forget," "Nothing As It Seems" was recorded using binaural techniques (thus thus the album title), meaning it's specifically designed for listening with headphones, tracking the sound as if you're in the room. >>

  Suggestion credit:
  Martin - Rostock, Germany, for all above
• Pearl Jam played this song live for the first time at Neil Young's Bridge School Benefit on Halloween 1999, about six months before it was released. The song was a staple of their 2000 tour, the first one Pearl Jam made into official bootlegs, so there are plenty of live versions in great quality floating around.