At home drawing pictures
Of mountain tops
With him on top
Lemon yellow sun
Arms raised in a V
And the dead lay in pools of maroon below
Daddy didn't give attention
Oh, to the fact that mommy didn't care
King Jeremy the wicked
Oh, ruled his world
Jeremy spoke in class today
Jeremy spoke in class today
Clearly I remember
Pickin' on the boy
Seemed a harmless little fuck
Oh, but we unleashed the lion
Gnashed his teeth and bit the recess lady's breast
How could I forget?
And he hit me with a surprise left
My jaw left hurting
Dropped wide open
Just like the day
Oh like the day I heard
Daddy didn't give affection, no
And the boy was something that mommy wouldn't wear
King Jeremy the wicked
Ruled his world
Jeremy spoke in class today
Jeremy spoke in class today
Jeremy spoke in class today
Try to forget this (try to forget this)
Try to erase this (try to erase this)
From the blackboard
Jeremy spoke in class today
Jeremy spoke in class today
Jeremy spoke in, spoke in
Jeremy spoke in, spoke in
Jeremy spoke in class today
Oh oh oh oh (spoke in, spoke in, spoke in)
(Spoke in)
Oh oh oh oh (spoke in, spoke in, spoke in)
Whoa oh (spoke in)
(Spoke in, spoke in)
Whoa oh (spoke in)
Whoa oh (spoke in, spoke in, spoke in)
Ah ah ah yeah
Ah ah ah ah (spoke in, spoke in, spoke in)
Yeah yeah ah ah ah (spoke in, spoke in, spoke in)
Ah ah ah ah
Of mountain tops
With him on top
Lemon yellow sun
Arms raised in a V
And the dead lay in pools of maroon below
Daddy didn't give attention
Oh, to the fact that mommy didn't care
King Jeremy the wicked
Oh, ruled his world
Jeremy spoke in class today
Jeremy spoke in class today
Clearly I remember
Pickin' on the boy
Seemed a harmless little fuck
Oh, but we unleashed the lion
Gnashed his teeth and bit the recess lady's breast
How could I forget?
And he hit me with a surprise left
My jaw left hurting
Dropped wide open
Just like the day
Oh like the day I heard
Daddy didn't give affection, no
And the boy was something that mommy wouldn't wear
King Jeremy the wicked
Ruled his world
Jeremy spoke in class today
Jeremy spoke in class today
Jeremy spoke in class today
Try to forget this (try to forget this)
Try to erase this (try to erase this)
From the blackboard
Jeremy spoke in class today
Jeremy spoke in class today
Jeremy spoke in, spoke in
Jeremy spoke in, spoke in
Jeremy spoke in class today
Oh oh oh oh (spoke in, spoke in, spoke in)
(Spoke in)
Oh oh oh oh (spoke in, spoke in, spoke in)
Whoa oh (spoke in)
(Spoke in, spoke in)
Whoa oh (spoke in)
Whoa oh (spoke in, spoke in, spoke in)
Ah ah ah yeah
Ah ah ah ah (spoke in, spoke in, spoke in)
Yeah yeah ah ah ah (spoke in, spoke in, spoke in)
Ah ah ah ah
Add your thoughts
Log in now to tell us what you think this song means.
Don’t have an account? Create an account with SongMeanings to post comments, submit lyrics, and more. It’s super easy, we promise!
On the Tuesday morning of January 8th, 1991 Jeremy was supposed to be in ISS the day he attended Faye Barnett's class and Faye knew he was supposed to be there. She told Jeremy that he needed a pricipal's pass to even be in her room. By this time Jeremy's life was in turmoil and he was unhappy, his parents divorced at an early age and his Dad barely knew he was even there. His school life was no better. Plus I believe there may have been underlying psychiatric problems.
Jeremy got out of his seat and was gone for less than 10 minutes, Instead of going to the pricipals' office he went to his locker and retrieved a .357 magnum and hid it under his shirt. When he returned to Barnett's class he quietly entered the classromm and walked to the front. With no emotion he said, "Miss, I got what I really went for". He placed the barrel in his mouth and pulled the trigger before anyone could react.
It's a really sad and tragic story, and I think it just really hit Eddie Vedder prompting him to write the song.
If a grunge rock band can see what is happening and write a very powerful song about it, then why can society not get their act together, and put counselors back in the schools, give the schools a budget big enough to operate so kids like this won't fall through the cracks, maybe spend some money on our own infrastructure which has failed not only my generation, but the generation after, and the generation after that.
I mean, honestly, a grunge band from the Pacific Northwest saw this happening long before any of the "massacres", that everyone seems so surprised about. If this song was written prior to the "advent" of the school massacre, perhaps, it would have behooved people to pay attention. School shootings are not new even though reacts to each one in horror as if it is the first one, and nobody seems to remember Kent State. That happened in the 60's. Our society needs to pay more than lip service to this problem. We have kids shooting classmates, we have committing suicide to escape the constant bullying. When do we wake the F*&^ up, and realize we are failing as a society.......
I was bullied from the time I was in Grammar School all the way through High School. Yes, I entertained thoughts of blowing up my school, and I had a few people on my list. But, I had self control. i had no support at home. I had to support myself. And that self control and knowledge of who I was not along with a few astute teachers kept me from going off the deep end. Bullying is incredibly real, and can be mentally damaging for life. It sucks up everything you are, turns it into something perverse and wrong and to be laughed at, and then spits you back out.
The song "Jeremy" only predicted what was going to happen, and guess what? They were right. Interesting side note, the album "Ten" which contains the song "Jeremy" was put out in 1991. Columbine happened in 1999. That's 8 years. That's too long to ignore a growing problem, and every time this happens, people are horrified for a few weeks and then they forget. Nothing is accomplished but, a hell a lip service is paid to the issue, and then the issue goes away until it happens again. Which it most definitely will.
Sorry for the dissertation. Bullying in schools and anywhere is a passionate pet peeve of mine as is our government's seeming inability to effect any change on this front. Pearl Jam noticed in 1991. Columbine happened in 1999, Sandy Hook in 2013, Virginia tech was between the two. Notice a pattern?
Since he was also a quiet guy, the song causes impact when Eddie sings "Jeremy spoke in class today", which means he finally said (in his own way - suicide) to everyone, including the English teacher with whom he aparently had some issues, what he always wanted to say.
To be honest, I had no clue of what the song was about until today, when I decided to find out what it meant. When you learn that Jeremy and the whole story were real, you start to find the song and the video quite disturbing because you see the suicide from the vision of Jeremy (the problems with his parents and school), of his classmates ("Try to forget this, Try to erase this from the blackboard", the problems they probably had later from seeing the shocking scene of a suicide right in front of them) and of the other people, who saw a young life ending in a newspaper and who knew that the suicide didn't change anything on the rest of the world (in the video it shows how the weather was before and after Jeremy killed himself - nothing changed, other people are still living their lives and some don't even know who the boy was).
So, besides all of that, what I absorved from this whole story was that suicide only reduces to 0 any chances of passing though harsh times and proving to yourself that you're strong enough to find other ways of solving your problems. Everyone has problems, what matters is how you face them
Not quite right - that's a line that's directly about him shooting himself. Back in the day, the long-running slogan for Smith & Wesson guns was "When A Smith & Wesson talks, everybody listens", hence "Jeremy spoke in class today"