Pearl Jam first charted with “Jeremy”

Jeremy Pearl Jam

Writer(s): Eddie Vedder, Jeff Ament (see lyrics here) Released: January 2, 1992 First Charted: August 15, 1992 Peak: 79 US, 5 AR, 5 MR, 15 UK, 32 CN, 68 AU, 1 DF (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): 0.5 US Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 133.92 video, 257.78 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: January 8, 1991. Richardson High School in Richardson, Texas. 16-year-old Jeremy Wade Delle missed class, so his English teacher told him to go the office to get an admittance slip. The boy returned with a gun, walked to the front of the classroom, placed the barrel in his mouth, and fired, killing himself SF in front of 30 students. WK Eddie Vedder, the lead singer of Pearl Jam, was inspired to write a song about the incident after reading about it in the Dallas Morning News. Vedder combined the details of that story with his own memories from junior high in San Diego, California. WK A kid in his class brought a gun to school one day and shot at a fish tank. In the song, Vedder references his own experiences of fighting with the boy. SF The song was released as the third single for Pearl Jam’s debut album, Ten. While it is possibly the best-known song in the band’s canon, it didn’t initially chart on the Billboard Hot 100, although it did hit #5 on both the mainstream and alternative rock charts. The song did eventually make it to the pop charts three years later upon a July 1995 reissue, eeking its way onto the chart at #79. WK The iconic video for the song mixes shots reflecting the incidents described in the song interspersed with clips of the band performing. The director, Mark Pellington, passed on it originally, but dove in after Vedder explained the back story to the song. Because of MTV’s policy against showing firearms, Pellington had to cut a shot of the gun going in Jeremy’s mouth. An image of the classmates with blood spattered on them implied Jeremy shot himself, but it was sometimes interpreted as him shooting his classmates. SF Entertainment Weekly’s Michel Romero described it as “an Afterschool Special from hell.” WK Regardless, it won Video of the Year at the 1993 MTV Video Music Awards. SF Resources: DMDB encyclopedia entry for Pearl Jam SF Songfacts WK Wikipedia Related Links: First posted 5/9/2020; last updated 12/27/2022.

Today in Music (1892): “The Old Folks at Home” charted for first time

The Old Folks at Home (Swanee River) Stephen Foster

Writer(s): Stephen Foster (see lyrics here) First Charted: August 13, 1892 Peak: 16 PM (Len Spencer), 2 PM, 17 DF (1900, Vess Ossman) (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): 20.0 (sheet music) Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 1.68 video, 0.59 streaming (multiple versions)

Awards (overall): Click on award for more details. Awards (Spencer): Awards (Ossman):

About the Song: Stephen Foster was the pre-eminent songwriter of the 19th century in America. The Songwriter Hall of Fame inductee was born in 1826 and published hs first song in 1842. He had his first hit with “Oh! Susanna” in 1848 and “Camptown Races” in 1850. SS His “greatest triumph” was with “The Old Folks at Home,” also known as “Swanee River,” in 1851. Ed P. Christy commissioned the minstrel song to be used by his troupe, Christy’s Minstrels. Christy was credited as the song’s creator on early sheet music printings WM because of a contractual agreement between him and Foster due to the latter’s concer that “an association with minstrel songs might damage his broader ambitions.” SS It meant Foster wasn’t credited (although he received royalties without recognition SS) from what became the most popular song ever published at that time WM with estimates as high as 20 million. PM Foster wouldn’t be credited until the copyright ran out in 1879, at which time he’d been dead sixteen years. SS The melody was likely borrowed from “Annie Laurie” by Lady John Scott, a ballad published in Sir Thomas Moore’s classic Irish Melodies collection. SS Foster wrote most of the lyrics before settling in on the right name for the river in the opening line. His brother suggested the Yazoo River in Mississippi and the Pee Dee River in South Carolina before consulting an atlas and coming up with the Suwannee River in Florida. Foster said, “That’s it exactly!” WK He deliberately misspelled it as “Swanee” to fit the melody. WK “For the first time, the two distinct categories of songs he had previously written, gentell parlor ballads and blackface-dialect numbers, merged into one.” SS The latter style involved writing in an exaggerated dialect to capture the language of the black slaves who worked cotton plantations before the Civil War, glorified antebellum Southern life. SFS “Swanee River” ended up sparking Florida tourism in the 1880s from people eager to see the “symbolic river and idyllic home” described by the song. WM Ironically, Foster himself never visited the state. WM In 1935, Florida named it their state song. The lyrics were revised in 2008 to eliminate racially offensive terms. SFS It should be noted, though, that at the time Foster wrote the song, he was unusually sympathetic in his portrayal of a displaced slave, singing of loneliness and longing. He wrote the song about the slave’s feelings of isolation with enough vagueness that spoke to a wider, white audience. SS The first charted version of the song came more than forty years after its publication when Len Spencer took it to #1 in 1892. It was one of nine versions to chart between 1892 and 1937. Other versions were by the Haydn Quartet (#4, 1904), Louise Homer (#6, 1905), Alma Gluck (#3, 1915), Taylor Trio (#4, 1916), Oscar Seagle (#8, 1919), Jimmie Lunceford (#19, 1936), and Bunny Berigan (#18, 1937). PM However, the highest ranked in Dave’s Music Database is the banjo instrumental by Vess Ossman. He was considered “The King of the Banjo” and “the foremost recorded ragtime musician of the original ragtime era.” PM Resources: SFS South Florida Sun-Sentinel (4/25/2008). “Senate cleans up lyrics of state song” by Linda Kleindienst SS Steve Sullivan (2013). Encyclopedia of Great Popular Song Recordings (Volumes I & II). Scarecrow Press: Lanham, Maryland. Pages 264-5. WM Wayback Machine PM Joel Whitburn (1986). Pop Memories 1890-1954. Record Research, Inc: Menomonee Falls, WI. Pages 345, 561, and 634. WK Wikipedia Related Links: First posted 1/24/2020; last updated 12/1/2025.