Jeremy

This song is about a boy named Jeremy Wade Delle, 16, who shot himself in front of his 30 classmates in his 2nd period English class. To know a bit about the background and history of Jeremy. He attended Richardson Highschool in Texas and his English teacher was Faye Barnett. Jeremy had only been at Richardson for a little more than 3 months before his death, he had some problems at his previous school and was sent to a psychiatric hospital. Apparently the insurance money ran out at the hospital and he was deemed as "cured" and released. Subsequently he went to live with his dad and was trasferred to Richardson HS. Shortly after arriving at Richardson Jeremy's locker was searched and some controversial but not illegal religeous items were found. Also, Jeremy had made some statements regarding two Richardson faculty members that may have gone over the line. As a result, they placed him in ISS (In School Suspension. You have to believe that being moved around like this and immediately being labeled a trouble maker would have a profound effect on a 16 year old. They pretty much put him in ISS because of the locker search and because of his stay at the psychiatric hospital, were I understand he was happier and got along with the other patients. In the ISS program he had been in contact with a girl, Lisa Moore, and they had become friends. Lisa stated that Jeremy wanted to discuss the boy she was dating and also mentioned he was having trouble with one of his techers. She was probably the closest person to Jeremy at the time. Anyway, he was assigned to the ISS program and from what I've read the ISS was pretty bad. It was pretty much solitary confinement, they didn't talk to you and you couldn't talk. Considering Jeremy was described as a quiet, lonely and distant boy, isolation was the last thing he should've been given. Lisa and Jeremy would secretly write notes back and forth at ISS and he would alway write "Write Back" on the bottom of each note. On Monday January 7th, he wrote "Later Days".

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.