Behind the Tragic True Stories that Inspired the Pearl Jam Song “Jeremy”

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There are a lot of layers to the story of the Pearl Jam song “Jeremy.” While the track is impactful, powerful, well-known, and expertly crafted, it is also shrouded in controversy from the tragic true stories it highlights to the reaction of those who knew the victims best. We will try to handle these nuanced details with care.

Below is the history and meaning of the 1992 hit Pearl Jam number, “Jeremy.”

The Real-Life Jeremy

Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder was inspired to write “Jeremy” after reading a small newspaper article that described a 15-year-old boy from Richardson, Texas. A student, Jeremy Wade Delle was late to class one morning and told to go to the principal’s office. Instead, he left and came back to class with a revolver. He said, “Miss, I got what I really went for,” and put the gun in his mouth before anyone could react. Then he pulled the trigger. The event happened in front of the teacher and 30 students on January 8, 1991.

The boy was known as “real quiet” and “acting sad.” One of his classmates, Lisa Moore, said she knew him from in-school suspension, saying, “He and I would pass notes back and forth and he would talk about life and stuff. He signed all of his notes, ‘Write back.’ But on Monday he wrote, ‘Later days.’ I didn’t know what to make of it. But I never thought this would happen.”

Sadly, Jeremy’s mother in a 2018 interview shared how her son was a prize-winning artist. “[T]hat day that he died did not define his life,” she said. And a former classmate of Jeremy’s, Brittany King, who was there when he died, said she didn’t like the Pearl Jam work. She said, “I was angry at them for writing that song. I thought, ‘You don’t know. You weren’t there. That story isn’t accurate.’”

In a 1993 interview, Vedder said of the song, “It came from a small paragraph in a paper which means you kill yourself and you make a big old sacrifice and try to get your revenge. That all you’re gonna end up with is a paragraph in a newspaper. Sixty-four degrees and cloudy in a suburban neighborhood. That’s the beginning of the video and that’s the same thing in the end; it does nothing … nothing changes. The world goes on and you’re gone. The best revenge is to live on and prove yourself. Be stronger than those people. And then you can come back.”

The Second Tragic Inspiration

Vedder likely felt compelled to write the song because it resonated with something he’d, sadly, already experienced. In 1991, Vedder was present in a school where a school shooting took place. It happened in his junior high in San Diego.

“I actually knew somebody in junior high school, in San Diego, California, that did the same thing, just about, didn’t take his life but ended up shooting up an oceanography room,” Vedder said in a 1991 interview. “I remember being in the halls and hearing it and I had actually had altercations with this kid in the past. I was kind of a rebellious fifth-grader and I think we got in fights and stuff.

“So it’s a bit about this kid named Jeremy and it’s also a bit about a kid named Brian that I knew and I don’t know … the song, I think it says a lot. I think it goes somewhere … and a lot of people interpret it different ways and it’s just been recently that I’ve been talking about the true meaning behind it and I hope no one’s offended and believe me, I think of Jeremy when I sing it.”

The Song Itself

With lyrics written by Vedder, Pearl Jam’s bassist Jeff Ament wrote the music. It ended up becoming the most successful single from Pearl Jam’s uber-popular debut LP, Ten—despite the fact that it was never going to be a single and was never actually released as a formal single, though it was played on the radio often and the song’s music video was played nonstop seemingly on MTV.

While perhaps the most depressing subject to talk about, “Jeremy” also foreshadowed what was to come in regard to the abundance of school shootings in America.

Photo by Michel Linssen/Redferns