10 Rock Music Songs That Aren't About What You Think
4. Alive - Pearl Jam
You can see why so many people have misunderstood the lyrics to Pearl Jam's Alive. It's hard to understand what Eddie Vedder is singing about at the best of times.
Originating on the band's excellent debut release Ten, Alive is about a young man discovering that who he thought was his real father is actually his step-father.
This exact thing happened to Vedder himself when he was a teenager.
It's the first part of what the singer describes as a "mini-opera" along with the songs Once and Footsteps, which follows the young man's journey after learning this news.
Many fans take the refrain of "I'm still alive" to be a positive thing; the protagonist is still persevering during difficult times.
Sadly, that's not how the man who wrote it first saw it.
Vedder has said that he intended for Alive to be taken in a negative way, with the young man in question seeing his existence as "a curse".
Damn, that's bleak.
This story does have a happy ending though, as Vedder has since said that his fans' reaction to the track has led him to see it in a positive light too.
Aww.