Jeremy
At home
Drawing pictures
Of mountaintops
With him on top
Lemin yellow sun
Arms raised in a V
And the dead lay
In pools of maroon below
Before Columbine, Colorado there was Richardson, Texas. In Richardson, Texas, a kid named Jeremy walked into his classroom and blew his brains out in front of his teacher and classmates. Jeremy inspired Eddie Vedder and was then immortalized after a fashion through the lyrics of Pearl Jam. Jeremy was an anthem of sorts to any lonely, abused kid in highschool… an undercurrent that threatened to turn into a riptide, pulling our souls into the dark deep to be lost.
Daddy didn’t give attention
To the fact that
Mommy didn’t care
Today, I see Jeremy as a warning, but the people that it should be warning didn’t listen to Pearl Jam. It was their children listening. And these children didn’t hear a warning – they heard a siren song. They identify with Jeremy – his isolation, his suffering, the failure of his parents – and in a lot of ways, Jeremy emboldens them down the wrong path – into the riptide and out to the deep.
King Jeremy the wicked
Ruled his world
Jeremy spoke in class today
Jeremy spoke in class today
I watched the video with my wife. The video is everything a music video should be: it should make more alive the story a song is telling. Of course, if all videos tried that, we’d quickly see how shallow many songs are. Lisa had never seen it before, and it upset her. The girl I was perhaps closest with in highschool loved it – a fellow soul: in some ways near misery.
Clearly I remember
Picking on the boy
Seemed a harmless little f***
But we unleashed a lion
Gnashed his teeth,
Bit the recess ladies breast
How could I forget
He hit me with a surprise left
My jaw left hurtin’
Dropped wide open
Just like the day…
Like the day I heard…
What is it about adolescence that leaves us feeling so alone, isolated, alienated? I hope to remember to re-read this in 10 years time and pull out my Pearl Jam albums to remember my time in this confusing age. But most importantly, I hope I remember to be able to listen, appreciate, and engage my children in their culture, on their turf, and hopefully keep them grounded in love.
Daddy didn’t give affection
And the boy
Was something Mommy wouldn’t wear
King Jeremy the wicked
Ruled his world
Jeremy spoke in class today
Jeremy spoke in class today
Some things can’t be taken back… Some healing just isn’t for this lifetime… Some injuries have to be carried for a lifetime like a festering disease… Like the face of Jeremy, etched into the minds of his teacher, his classmates, and his parents… You can’t forget it… You can’t erase it… You can only hope that the limited healing from the disease can keep away another outbreak…
Try to forget this…
Try to erase this…
From the blackboard
A good page on the real story of Jeremy
Wow, nice insight. I remember being one of the kids listening to this song, but I didn’t really stop to figure out the words and what they meant.
Then my best friend’s younger brother blew his brains out in a little used room in our high school, though not for the same reasons as Jeremy.
I also remember Glen from Toad the Wet Sprocket singning a snippet of this song in lounge-singer style, so the song goes both ways for me.