Speak Up, Jeremy: An Attempt at a Comprehensive Analysis of Pearl Jam's "Jeremy"
By: Steve Pulaski
"Jeremy spoke in class today" are Eddie Vedder's chilling and stomach-turning words in Pearl Jam's song "Jeremy," recited frequently throughout the song, serving as an informal chorus. The words seem to have direct access to your spine and possess the ability to send shivers down it whenever they're sung The music video for "Jeremy," which was a companion to the song released in 1992 as the third single off of the band's album Ten, is an all-encompassing sensory-annihilation, combining loud, bombastic instrumentation that often obscures Vedder's vocals, quickly-cut and briskly-edited shots that are captured with several different color pallets, angles, and filters, and finds itself frequently punctuated with isolated words and even a specific Bible verse.
The video, to say the least, is uncomfortable, mainly because of the visual and aural scheme it sets forth. The loudness of the vocals and the instrumentals combined with the sadness and relevant story make "Jeremy" a disturbing listen and an even more disturbing watch just to see it all unfold in the bold way that it does. The video, in addition, features Vedder in the foreground of a bloody-red background, resembling hell, using frequent camera movements and shadows to give off a haunting vibe to his presence. The song even predates the devastating Columbine High School shooting, existing before school shootings seemingly became depressingly commonplace.
To simplify the story brought forth in the song, a young boy named Jeremy is the very definition of a lonely, isolated soul, made fun of by his classmates, without any friends, and his relationship with his parents is defined by frequent arguments. In the music video, nobody in the song moves but Jeremy and they are all in a frozen state, regardless whether he is in class, at the dinner table, or in public. This provides for an even more introverted perspective, as if Jeremy tunes out everybody, regardless of who they are, and his only world is the one he creates himself through drawings and solo-adventures he has in the woods. Using deeply-haunting visuals such as Jeremy raising his arms in a "V" in the foreground of fire exist throughout the song, in addition. The song concludes with Jeremy entering his English class, tossing an apple at the teacher, standing in front of the blackboard, facing the students, closing his eyes before a flash of light blinds the audience and reveals a frozen class with looks of fright, shock, and surprise on their faces as they sit in horror, many blood-soaked. Jeremy has killed himself in front of a large audience, including his teacher.
The video is hard to watch at first because adjusting to Pearl Jam's grunge, heavy-metal style can be exhausting to relatively untrained ears, and only becomes a more difficult watch once one digs deeper into the lyrics and the imagery of the video. Vedder's lyrics detail a lonely life of a kid with no friends and no support system, not even from his parents, and Vedder keeps some of his lyrics ambiguous. Vedder's line, "King Jeremy the wicked ruled his world," in particular, sparks a dueling set of meanings. One could infer Jeremy found himself to be the ruler of the world he created in his drawings, or even go as far as to say the only time Jeremy felt in control was when he got up in front of the class, put a gun in his mouth, and pulled the trigger.
Then there are lyrics that indicate Vedder's relationship with the boy was a hasty one. "Seemed a harmless little fuck," he states, continuing on by saying, "But we unleashed a lion. How could I forget? He hit me with a surprise left, my jaw left hurting," possibly indicating that Vedder once had a verbal altercation with the boy.
Finally, the most iconic line from the story is Vedder's heavily-repeated and continuously-emphasized, "Jeremy spoke in class today." To define the line, one can refer back to Jeremy's personality - quiet, lonely, and the figurative ruler of his own world. Clearly Jeremy wasn't known for speaking up in class or even in public, so the only time he likely spoke was before he killed himself in front of his classmates and teacher. The only time his classmates really paid attention to him was when he killed himself and afterwards, leaving the irony to be that the kid who nobody really bothered to get to know left the greatest impression on them of all.
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