10 Great Rock Songs Inspired By Death

Of all the grunge heavyweights, Pearl Jam don't really get the respect they deserve for their songwriting. At a time when most bands were getting a lot more real and talking about their inner pain, Eddie Vedder was looking to write songs about average people, like the girl who disowns her family on Daughter or nursing a refugee on the song Dissident. While Jeremy definitely fits the bill for a list like this, Alive is the one that hit a lot closer to home.

Being a part of the original demo that Vedder gave to Stone Gossard to try out for the band, this is the start of a twisted story called MamaSon, where a boy is told that his parental figures have all been a lie. The man who he thought was his father was actually his stepfather, and his real dad had passed away a few years before. In the lyrics, this eventually drives this guy insane, eventually going on a killing spree and ending up getting executed by the state.

While those sides of the story turn up on the songs Once and Footsteps respectively, the central idea of Alive was a little too accurate to what Eddie had gone through. The entire concept of the father figure being a lie was a real problem he had dealt with, as his real father was just a friend of the family who he never really got to know until after he passed away. Now we all have to just collectively pray that none of the other stuff that happens in MamaSon ends up happening with Eddie in real life.