If you lived in a household that broadcast MTV for more than about 30 seconds at any point throughout the 1990s, you’re probably already very familiar with Pearl Jam’s “Jeremy” video. Croak-narrated by frontman Eddie Vedder, the video was undeniably eye-catching, featuring jump-cut editing, enigmatic but menacing text, and short vignettes of its title character slowly being pushed to the precipice of violence, all while Vedder reminds us that “Jeremy spoke in class today.”
Now, to commemorate National Gun Violence Awareness Day, the band has released the original, uncensored version of the video, including scenes that show actor Trevor Wilson placing a gun in his own mouth, which were deemed too explicit to broadcast on MTV back in the day. (For whatever reason, the aftermath of that moment, in which Jeremy’s shocked classmates are covered in blood, was not.)
The irony of the censored version of “Jeremy,” of course, is that it’s always opened up interpretations of the video as being darker than it actually is—admittedly, a relative concept—since it’s very possible to read the last moments as showing Jeremy turning his gun on his classmates instead of himself. (A reading that’s only become more plausible as gun violence in American schools has increased exponentially in the 28 years since the song’s release.) The restored version makes the band and director Mark Pellington’s intent quite a bit more clear (if only marginally less gruesome); it’s also pointedly intended to highlight America’s ongoing problems with gun violence (alongside its ongoing problems with pretty much everything else).
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I hear the uncensored version of “Birdhouse In Your Soul” is even more disturbing.
the most disturbing uncensored version of a song must be diane by therapy. In the version you got to see and hear it was well a song about a date. the complete version is well, it ends with rape and murder.
That’s a song written by the great Grant Hart. Check him out.
And it’s a true story.
Yes! I did not know that until yesterday. That’s chilling.
Good lord, I don’t think I’ve thought about that band in 25 years.(Holy fuck, it couldn’t possibly have been that long ago, could it…?)
The scene where Bluebird kills Jason off and countless screaming argonauts would have been NC-17 if it had been a movie.
Well, the original title was “Birdhouse in your Hole”
Slightly off-topic, but the video and live version of ‘Even Flow’ is so much better than what’s on Ten. Perfectly captures the energy of their live shows back in the ‘90s. I remember seeing them at Lollapalooza way back when, and Eddie climbed a rope ladder all the way up into the lighting rig above the stage, and then swung on that motherfucker like Tarzan out over the crowd. How he didn’t fucking fall off or die is beyond me. I miss those shows.THIS ISN’T A TV STUDIO! JOSH!
I was 15 years old and in my first mosh-pit during Pearl Jam’s set at Lollapalooza that year. It was during Even Flow that I got heat exhaustion, threw up on the back of some dude’s new LP shirt and collapsed thinking, “I’m going to die right here”. A few guys picked me up, pushed me towards the front of the stage where security pulled me over the railing. I remember looking up and Eddie Vedder was right above me, looking down at me while singing and – I SWEAR TO THIS DAY – he had a look of love in his eyes that said, “you ok, brother?”.I wasn’t a big fan of PJ back then, and I’ve never gotten into them since. But I will always argue that Eddie Vedder is a genuinely good dude.
I believe it. I saw him pull more than a few tiny young women from the front of the crowd when they were getting smashed against the barricade.
The only negative thing that I’ve ever heard about Vedder is that he was shitty to drummers who weren’t named Jack Irons and Matt Cameron. He’s a swell fellow.
Sorry, but I gotta know. What’s an LP shirt? Lollapalooza?Another story about Eddie for your trouble – I saw them open for Fugazi at a Rock For Choice benefit in ‘92 at the Hollywood Palladium, and it was right when they were starting to break and get big. Near the end of the set, Eddie decided he wanted to crowdsurf from the stage all the way to the back of the room, and then all the way back to the stage again. I just happened to be up front when he started getting ready to do it, so when he stuck out his hands for people to grab and pull him on to the crowd (he didn’t just jump in), mine was one of the first he grabbed. I gave him a big push on his boot as he was making his way out, and then another push on his other boot when he was making his way back to the stage. Kinda fun. What an amazing show. (Fugazi’s set from that night is available via download on the Dischord site if you’re a fan.) L7 and Lunachicks also played, and the hilarious thing about that is that on the posters and t-shirts, Lunachicks were billed higher than Pearl Jam.
Oh yes. It was his brand new Lollapalooza shirt. I think Pearl Jam was the 2nd act that day (after Lush), so he had JUST bought it. A lot of people bought those shirts, not all had it christened with the liquid vomit of a 15 year old in the mosh pit. L7 and Lunachicks.. holy shit. I hope Alexa is ready to dig in her back catalog, because it’s been a while since I’ve listened either of them.
Oh man, I forgot all about Lush! Miki Berenyi all day.That’s right, PJ did play early the day I saw them, too. Probably the last time I saw them in the daylight was at Lollapalooza. They were up-and-comers then.
Agree 100%. I remember whenever the live version of “Even Flow” would be played on the radio, that “WAAH!” at the beginning was like an instant adrenaline jolt. It still brings me back to my grungy teenage years whenever I hear it.
Yup. I remember they released it on a single I have buried somewhere, and I always wondered why it wasn’t on the record. Miles better.
Couldn’t agree more about the song. I remember being disappointed when I bought the album and heard that cut. I was thirteen. 😬 Amazing album.
Evenflow is literally Paradise City dressed in flannel. And Pearl Jam was the grunge band that filled in the gap for future Dave Matthews Band fans. Yecch.I don’t actually feel that harshly, but I did at that point. I was young.
I was about to come shit on you before I saw the second line of that. We all have bad opinions when we’re young. I used to think Led Zeppelin were terrible.
Well, Pearl Jam were always the weakest and most commercial of the Seattle bands. And nothing they did was as good as Appetite For Destruction. To be fair, neither was nothing else GnR did either.
Appetite is rare though. Hard to compare anything to that. It’s a production marvel.
Musically, there is definitely a heavy blues and classic rock influence on both “Appetite” and “Ten”, but in terms of attitude, I’ve always thought of early PJ as flannel-clad U2 or Springsteen: angry, bombastic, earnest, political, self-serious, etc. Basically, everything a teenage me seemed to want out of music.
I remember loving Pearl Jam and thinking DMB was a cheesy flash in the pan*. Now I’m kind of cynical on PJ, but a huge Dave fan. Funny how times and tastes change…*at the time, other horrible PJ knockoffs might have included: Creed, Matchbox 20, Days of the New, and for the first 3 months of their popularity, Stone Temple Pilots (who are still amazing)
I had a cassette tape of Live on Two Legs that I keep listening to on my old Walkman. Every song sounds ten times better than their studio recordings.
I used to listen to Live at Benaroya Hall a lot, but then I got really sick of it for some reason. I’ve recently been getting back into Pearl Jam Twenty, both the audio and video versions. Great stuff.
I’ve definately seen the “gun in mouth” footage before. Has it not been inserted into the actual video before?EDIT: I think it was in the Pearl Jam 25 documentary.
Yeah I *think* this version was on Youtube for awhile or something?
MTV once had a special called MTV Uncensored that aired very late at night that showed the uncensored versions of lots of their more popular videos. This was on that show. Maybe you saw it there?
We had a friend named Jeremy in college. He got really, really sick of us asking him if he spoke in class today.Also, it’s a real shame Pearl Jam lost their musical ambition and decided to just start making the same record over and over again.
you haven’t heard their latest then.
https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/pearl-jam-gigaton/“…an influential band’s artsier side in mostly superficial ways—longer
songs, pasted-in ambience, grand attempts at state-of-the-union
philosophizing—while backing away from the actual subversion that made
them exciting in the first place.”Pass.
I’m not a fan of their latest, just saying it doesn’t match your they lost their musical ambition and are making the same record over and over again statement.Also, the writers of pitchfork don’t actually like music so much as just like shitting on things.
You obviously haven’t listen to any Pearl Jam albums.
I knew a Mary O, who went by “Mo” in 90s. older sister of some classmates by a few years. We worked together when “New Age Girl” by Dead Eye Dick came out: “Mary Moon. She’s a vegetarian. She don’t like meat, but she sure like the bone!”We all thought it was Mary Mu/Moo. She thought it was “Mary Mo”. She did NOT care for that song, even as it was a catchy earworm of the year. She even had management talk to everybody, asking us not to sing it, esp not around her.
It was a “don’t think of a green striped elephant” type of thing. yeah.I remember I was distracted doing my job when she walks by and stops and stares. “Really?”
That’s when I realized I was humming it. Not even singing it. I apologized, but it WAS a catchy earworm of the summer! Sorry!She transferred out shortly after, I left right after that, lost contact with them all. our sisters are still fb friends, afaik, her brother died, no clue about Mary?
And people say 2020 is all just bad news
I’m waiting for this kid to turn up in the inevitable click-bait slideshow “Kid stars of the 90s—Today! Number 7 will ‘blow you away’!”Also, sympathy for the devil: poor guy keeps getting called the “unclean spirit”. Do you know how hard it is to get the smell of sulfur and brimstone out of your clothes, hair, etc.?
The kid, Trevor Wilson, died a few years ago at the age of 36.
Well, that’s a bummer. I really hope it wasn’t because he got shit for being in that video. Now I’m afraid to ask about the girl who dances in the beginning of the video for Blind Melon’s “No Rain” (yes, I know about Shannon Hoon!)…
If I remember the story correctly, he quit acting in his late teens, and went on to work for the United Nations after finishing college. Died by drowning during a solo swim in Puerto Rico, a few weeks before his 37th birthday.But, as far as I know, the Bee Girl is still alive and buzzing (sorry).
Back in the day Bee Girl tried *really* hard to cash in on her moment of fame, which made that video all the more annoying.
“It’s very possible to read the last moments as showing Jeremy turning his gun on his classmates instead of himself.”
Sure, if you’re not paying attention.
I’m positive I’ve seen this uncensored version before. I think it was when MTV2 did a 20 video countdown of MTV’s Most Controversial Videos, hosted by Andrew W.K.
Yes, it was one of those videos. That special showed a lot of the uncensored versions of videos. It was interesting to see what MTV would and wouldn’t show.
oh, well i always thought he was singing “jeremy’s broken”
‘Croak-narrated’? C’mon, man. This isn’t a Creed song. Vedder’s voice is great.
Okay, seriously, how do you censor that part of the video, but a classroom full of kids covered in blood doesn’t get censored? It was disturbing seeing that scene as a little kid in the 90s
Better late than never.