Pearl Jam shared the uncensored cut of the 1992 “Jeremy” music video on Friday in honor of National Gun Violence Awareness Day. The original video was edited by MTV back in the 1990’s to conform with censorship standards regarding violence.
The song appeared on the band’s Ten album, and the Mark Pellington-directed video earned Video of the Year award at the 1993 MTV Music Video Awards.
The video for the now-classic Pearl Jam songs tells the story of a boy who is bullied in school to the point of suicide. In the original 1992 edit, the titular Jeremy’s public suicide in front of his classmates is only implied. In the newly released edited version, however, Jeremy is shown putting a gun into his mouth. This one detail is the lone edit of the video, but still adds a great deal of power to a still otherwise unsettling video. Between footage of frontman Eddie Vedder belting the lyrics, Jeremy (played by Trevor Wilson) slides further into depression due to a steady barrage of bullying at school and neglect at home. All the while, clippings from the newspaper article detailing Jeremy’s death flash on screen. Both with and without the edits, the video borders on disturbing without crossing over into gratuity. All of the eeriness has a purpose. In a statement, the band said of the video’s release,
The increase in gun violence since the debut of ‘Jeremy’ is staggering. We have released the uncensored version of the video which was unavailable in 1992 with TV censorship laws. We can prevent gun deaths whether mass shootings, deaths of despair, law enforcement, or accidental.
Watch the newly-released, uncensored video for “Jeremy” by Pearl Jam.
Pearl Jam — “Jeremy” (uncensored version)
[Video: Pearl Jam]