Pearl Jam - Jeremy - Lyrics Meaning

The song Jeremy is on the 1991 Pearl Jam album, "Ten".

The song Jeremy is a composite of two different young men. The first, Jeremy Wade Delle from Texas. Jeremy had spent some time in a psychiatric hospital. He was released and labeled "cured" after the insurance money ran out. He then went to live with his father and his stepmother. Upon admission to his new school, he began spending a significant amount of time in school suspension. One the day he shot himself, he was reprimanded for being late to school and was sent to the office for a late pass. He left the room, came back with a gun, and committed suicide in his English class.

The other student the song is about is a student that Eddie Vedder knew. He didn't kill anyone, but he did shoot up a classroom.

Vedder got the idea for the song after he reading the newspaper about Jeremy's suicide. He thought about the boy with so many problems and frustrations and in the end, all he ended up with was a small paragraph in the newspaper. Jeremy could have gotten revenge on the students who bullied him by staying alive.