Daughter

I fully agree that this song is about Child abuse, specifically of a girl with a learning disability. But I think I have a slightly different spin on it. The thing is as we all know Eddie Vedder and the other members of Pearl Jam tend to write ambiguous lyrics that can have many possible meanings. One can interpret many of the words for multiple metaphors. So different interpretations are probably correct. This is very different from say Ray Davies of the Kinks story telling song style. Continuing, the disability most commonly sited is dyslexia. And that is a good and obvious choice. But it is not the first one that I thought of. Note “Mother reads aloud child tries to understand it”. Dyslexia is the inability to read or a difficulty with reading, not an inability to understand being read to. In fact from being a teacher myself at one time I know that reading to a dyslexic child is often the only way they can understand text or printed material (until they get special help to develop reading skills). Therefore I propose a different disorder, namely ADD. “Young girl, violins(ce), center of her own attention…”, “The shades go down it's in her head…”, “Painted room, can't deny, somethin's wrong…”. I know from having ADHD myself that we easily get distracted by nearly everything in our environment, sounds, sights, and often get lost in our own thoughts as novel things around us remind us of other things or ideas and we lose track of what we originally were doing. ADD/ADHD often coexist with Dyslexia. Noticing novelty or differences in things can be good, and why many scientists have had ADD/ADHD and Dyslexia. Noting the same lyric lines, especially “…center of her own attention…”, and “The shades go down it's in her head…” and “The picture kept will remind me…”, one could think of yet a more serious condition such as Autism. Autistic children tend to fixate or obsess on things — they usually seem as if in their own world. And because Autistic children are often difficult to raise or even interact with as they have delayed language skills among other symptoms, they are sadly often abused.

Oddly a form of Autism called Asperger's syndrome is a type of pervasive development disorder (PDD). PDDs are a group of conditions that involve delays in the development of many basic skills, most notably the ability to socialize with others, to communicate, and to use imagination — they tend to be literal. Although Asperger's syndrome is similar in some ways to autism -- another, more severe type of PDD -- there are some important differences. Children with Asperger's syndrome typically function better than do those with autism. In addition, children with Asperger's syndrome generally have normal intelligence and near-normal language development, although they may develop problems communicating as they get older. Some high functioning people with Asperger’s are savants at a particular single skill such as music or math. Many people feel that Microsoft’s Bill Gates has Asperger’s.

Sorry if this seems like a discussion of child development and psychiatry, but Pearl Jams does seem to be concerned with children and child abuse a lot. Note the early songs Daughter, Alive, Jeremy. From what I’ve read Eddie did come from an abusive home. Interestingly child abuse and youth anger seem to be common topics in Alternative Rock songs by other bands too. Note The Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana and even the New Wave band R.E.M. But only Pearl Jam knows what this song truly is about. Perhaps someday they will put out a book explaining all their songs. Actually, R.E.M. has such a book about themselves.