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After 30 years, Pearl Jam releases uncensored Jeremy video

WhySoDevious

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ew.com

Pearl Jam finally release uncensored version of 'Jeremy' music video

Pearl Jam released the previously-unavailable uncensored version of their 'Jeremy' music video to coincide with National Gun Violence Awareness Day.
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"The increase in gun violence since the debut of 'Jeremy' is staggering," Pearl Jam wrote in a Friday Instagram post. "We have released the uncensored version of the video which was unavailable in 1992 with TV censorship laws."

The video, directed by Mark Pellington, aired in heavy rotation on MTV in the early 1990s, but has not been officially available in unedited form until now. It depicts a bullied teenager who commits suicide in front of his classmates; however, MTV modified a shot showing young actor Trevor Wilson placing a gun in his mouth. The edited version zoomed in so the gun could not be seen, but preserved the imagery that follows, showing Jeremy's classmates covered in blood. The uncensored version restores the original shot, making the video's ending less ambiguous.
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Besides the gun at the end and the uncensored "harmless little fuck", the Nazi salute scene in the classroom is also uncut.
 
Roberto Duran

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I think I saw this version years ago on MTV on their most controversial videos list. They played an alternate cut of many different videos and they were all uncensored.
 

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It's interesting. If it was made in the last 20 years it probably would have been about Jeremy being a school shooter. But it does seem to be sympathetic towards Jeremy, ignored and abused at home, outcast at school, lashing out at authority figures.

Not sure I entirely understand the point of the Nazi salute.
 
refusi0n1

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I could've sworn I saw the uncensored version a while back floating around youtube or maybe mtv maybe it was a different one
 
Mariachi507

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I saw that they uploaded the Jeremy video the other day but didn't think much of it. Pretty neat seeing it for the first time. I like Ed's jacket. Love the strobe effect as well.

Rei no Otaku said:
It's a good song but as someone with that name who went to school in the 90s, people used to sing it at me constantly. Drove me crazy.
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For me, it's Jesse's Girl. Fucking Jesse's Girl. If it wasn't for Paul Thomas Anderson I would hate that song.
 
AniHawk

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the censored version makes it look like he shoots kids in his class. not sure why that was considered 'better'
 
Rufio

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ya know, all these years i always thought jeremy came in and starting blasting his classmates.

huh. ya live and ya learn.
 
Artdayne

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Mariachi507 said:
I saw that they uploaded the Jeremy video the other day but didn't think much of it. Pretty neat seeing it for the first time. I like Ed's jacket. Love the strobe effect as well.



For me, it's Jesse's Girl. Fucking Jesse's Girl. If it wasn't for Paul Thomas Anderson I would hate that song.
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LOL I got that same thing, to be fair it's a catchy song though.
 
Sheepinator

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I saw them live in the 90's in London. Great concert. I remember they stopped mid-song so the singer could yell at people in the front to stop shoving because some young woman was being crushed. They started back up as if they hadn't even stopped playing.

Speaking of old censored videos, remember Frankie Goes to Hollywood's Relax? I mentioned to someone here in America that the video for that was something else, and it soon became obvious they had grown up with a completely different far more network safe video.
 
jett

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It's also been remastered in 4K like some other music videos recently, looks great.
 
Gentlemen

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Man I want all 1990s music videos looking this clean. Such a dramatic improvement over the horrid collection of 90s flash vid conversions online right now.
 

Tbro777

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Rufio said:
ya know, all these years i always thought jeremy came in and starting blasting his classmates.

huh. ya live and ya learn.
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I always saw it as him shooting himself. The lyrics "try to erase this from the blackboard" to me meaning his brains splattered in the blackboard, and little bit before the end classroom scene Eddie raised his hand to his head acting like he's shooting himself.
 
Megasoum

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For those wondering, it's not actually the Nazi salute. It's a reference to the Bellamy Salute that was used during the Pledge of Allegiance before WW2.

en.wikipedia.org

Bellamy salute - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org


Students_pledging_allegiance_to_the_American_flag_with_the_Bellamy_salute.jpg
 
CDX

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Like what others in the thread have said, this isn't what I imagined the uncensored video to be. As a little kid, I was somehow aware the video was censored, but always assumed the censored part was some sort of graphic scenes of Jeremy shooting the whole class. So this in my opinion is a milder edit than what I imagined was happening in the censored version.

What a different feel the ending has now to me.
 
SpitztheGreat

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Rufio said:
ya know, all these years i always thought jeremy came in and starting blasting his classmates.

huh. ya live and ya learn.
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AniHawk said:
the censored version makes it look like he shoots kids in his class. not sure why that was considered 'better'
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It is a common issue so you aren't alone. It's an example of editors making decisions that work given their perfect knowledge of content and context, but doesn't work with an audience with imperfect knowledge. In the vacuum of the creative process, the powers-to-be understood the full context of the video, so the removal of 1 second of footage didn't change their understanding, but without that 1 second of footage the audience loses critical information.

It also isn't helped that the song's lyrics are pretty ambiguous as to the ending. This isn't a criticism of the song itself, but it is a danger when you use a visual medium to supplement an audio-based narrative. The visual component added unique context that wasn't supported (in a literal sense) in the body of the song. When the visual content is removed or altered, it can leave a hole in the audience's understanding of the material.
 
mattiewheels

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That's really cool to see.

But can't not think about the physics of his blood splattering forward instead of behind him, lol.
 
CarpeDeezNutz

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antonz

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SpitztheGreat said:
It is a common issue so you aren't alone. It's an example of editors making decisions that work given their perfect knowledge of content and context, but doesn't work with an audience with imperfect knowledge. In the vacuum of the creative process, the powers-to-be understood the full context of the video, so the removal of 1 second of footage didn't change their understanding, but without that 1 second of footage the audience loses critical information.

It also isn't helped that the song's lyrics are pretty ambiguous as to the ending. This isn't a criticism of the song itself, but it is a danger when you use a visual medium to supplement an audio-based narrative. The visual component added unique context that wasn't supported (in a literal sense) in the body of the song. When the visual content is removed or altered, it can leave a hole in the audience's understanding of the material.
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You see it with November Rain a lot. People miss the fact that the Bride ends up killing herself. The video never explictely shows it but she has a mirrored casket which immediately hints at gun based suicide.
 

nitewulf

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Huh, I thought from the video as well as lyrically it was always clear he killed himself.
 
signal

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I dunno why but I've found the strobe light sequences funny for like two decades.
 
SpitztheGreat

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antonz said:
You see it with November Rain a lot. People miss the fact that the Bride ends up killing herself. The video never explictely shows it but she has a mirrored casket which immediately hints at gun based suicide.
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God I hate Guns and Roses and I really hate that video, but I have NEVER noticed the mirrored casket before and I was unaware that it suggested suicide by gun. Can you provide a link, my google-fu is failing me.
 
SpitztheGreat

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mattiewheels said:
But can't not think about the physics of his blood splattering forward instead of behind him, lol.
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CarpeDeezNutz said:
Yeah I was scratching my head at that.
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Honestly, I really do think that is 90% of the problem. From an editing perspective, the blood splatter and the change in perspective is really confusing for even an attentive viewer. The viewer's perspective gets confused in the final seconds of the video, and losing that second or so of footage for the gun really screws everything up. It makes both theories (suicide or murder) equally valid and unsupported. As a young guy I remember thinking that the kid must have shot himself, but the looks on the students faces, and the blood splatter could be evidence that the image freezes at the moment that he shoots the students so they're scared and wounded.

It's all too bad because it's a sadly timeless song that was muffed in the video's last 10 seconds.
 
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WhySoDevious

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I always figured he was killing himself in the video... but I thought he did it by putting the gun to his temple and shooting.

Seeing him with the gun in his mouth... that freaked me out. I was not expecting that - a very unsettling image.
 
MegaRockEXE

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I've heard the song many times, but have never seen the video. Then I read up on this song more. Man, this is some heavy stuff to take in. Very tragic.
 
scitek

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I can't find the original anywhere now lol. It's probably been 20+ years since I've seen it, so I'm not sure what's different exactly. I assume the moment he puts the gun in his mouth? Somehow I always knew it was about him killing himself in front of the class, but I think it's just because the kids at the end look shocked and not like they'd been shot themselves.
 
Megasoum

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scitek said:
I can't find the original anywhere now lol. It's probably been 20+ years since I've seen it, so I'm not sure what's different exactly. I assume the moment he puts the gun in his mouth? Somehow I always knew it was about him killing himself in front of the class, but I think it's just because the kids at the end look shocked and not like they'd been shot themselves.
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The censored version zooms in on his face so you don't see him pull the trigger.

Also, the actor who played the kid in the clip died in 2016 at 36 from a drowning accident.

Everything around this song is so tragic.
 
antonz

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SpitztheGreat said:
God I hate Guns and Roses and I really hate that video, but I have NEVER noticed the mirrored casket before and I was unaware that it suggested suicide by gun. Can you provide a link, my google-fu is failing me.
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Its sort of an old fashion technique these days. Basically extreme head trauma would typically mean closed casket but some people still wanted to see their loved one a last time so they would insert the mirror like divider which would allow them to hide the damage portion of the head and mirror the face to look normal. These days they do a lot of facial reconstruction with wax etc. or people just go the closed casket route.

All part of the grieving process. When a good friend of mine killed herself 5 years ago there was a lot of debate about it but ultimately it was decided just to keep the casket closed so people could remember her as she was before.
 
alr1ght

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scitek said:
I can't find the original anywhere now lol. It's probably been 20+ years since I've seen it, so I'm not sure what's different exactly. I assume the moment he puts the gun in his mouth? Somehow I always knew it was about him killing himself in front of the class, but I think it's just because the kids at the end look shocked and not like they'd been shot themselves.
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I found an old link, supposedly uploaded in 2009 but it's clearly the brand new 4K uncensored version. It's bizarre. I've never seen youtube update an old video link. Usually once it's up, you're stuck with it and you can't edit it at all.
www.youtube.com

Pearl Jam - Jeremy (Official 4K Video)

Official HD Video for "Jeremy" by Pearl Jam (Don't see the video in HD? Here are instructions on how to update video quality settings on YouTube: https://sup...
www.youtube.com www.youtube.com
 
SpitztheGreat

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antonz said:

Its sort of an old fashion technique these days. Basically extreme head trauma would typically mean closed casket but some people still wanted to see their loved one a last time so they would insert the mirror like divider which would allow them to hide the damage portion of the head and mirror the face to look normal. These days they do a lot of facial reconstruction with wax etc. or people just go the closed casket route.

All part of the grieving process. When a good friend of mine killed herself 5 years ago there was a lot of debate about it but ultimately it was decided just to keep the casket closed so people could remember her as she was before.
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Yeah I went back and watched the video, but I couldn't find anything about mirror coffins and suicide, but I'll take your word for it. What a super fucking morbid concept. Like you said, everyone grieves in their own way, but I can't fathom choosing that over a simple closed casket.

What an oddly specific detail for G&R to put into the video. Without suffering through the song again, does the song support the suicide theory, or is it something exclusive to the video?
 
scitek

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alr1ght said:
I found an old link, supposedly uploaded in 2009 but it's clearly the brand new 4K uncensored version. It's bizarre. I've never seen youtube update an old video link. Usually once it's up, you're stuck with it and you can't edit it at all.
www.youtube.com

Pearl Jam - Jeremy (Official 4K Video)

Official HD Video for "Jeremy" by Pearl Jam (Don't see the video in HD? Here are instructions on how to update video quality settings on YouTube: https://sup...
www.youtube.com www.youtube.com
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Yeah, if you have enough clout, YouTube will apparently let you replace an old video with a new one without having to reupload it from scratch. That's what I was talking about, though. It seems that Pearl Jam want this uncensored version to be the official one now, so they had the original one replaced. I literally can't find a copy of the old one anywhere anymore.

EDIT: And to make things worse, there was another video for the song that was scrapped before this one was made, so that's all that comes up now when looking for the "original" video lol
 
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PHOENIXZERO

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Song and music video were in part inspired by the suicide of Jeremy Delle back in 1991, it's been a long time I remember some years back seeing some posts by someone who claimed they were a classmate of his and hated this song and Vedder because of it especially after they played at the college they were attending in Texas, can't remember why exactly but I think it was something about Eddie said on stage also.

EDIT: I think it was the inventing the motivation of his suicide in the song and video.

WhySoDevious said:
I always figured he was killing himself in the video... but I thought he did it by putting the gun to his temple and shooting.

Seeing him with the gun in his mouth... that freaked me out. I was not expecting that - a very unsettling image.
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Same and never questioned he killed himself, also never saw the uncensored version until now.
 
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antonz

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SpitztheGreat said:
Yeah I went back and watched the video, but I couldn't find anything about mirror coffins and suicide, but I'll take your word for it. What a super fucking morbid concept. Like you said, everyone grieves in their own way, but I can't fathom choosing that over a simple closed casket.

What an oddly specific detail for G&R to put into the video. Without suffering through the song again, does the song support the suicide theory, or is it something exclusive to the video?
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yeah the whole song is about a troubled relationship. Its based on a short story a friend of Axl wrote. In the story a musician and his on and off relationship with his girlfriend who eventually kills herself. Through the video you can see she is completely unhappy even at the wedding there is no smile from her just looking off into the distance etc. November Rain , Don't Cry and Estranged are sort of a trilogy of Videos all related to the short story.
 
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PHOENIXZERO

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SpitztheGreat said:
Yeah I went back and watched the video, but I couldn't find anything about mirror coffins and suicide, but I'll take your word for it. What a super fucking morbid concept. Like you said, everyone grieves in their own way, but I can't fathom choosing that over a simple closed casket.

What an oddly specific detail for G&R to put into the video. Without suffering through the song again, does the song support the suicide theory, or is it something exclusive to the video?
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Don't remember if it was the songs and music videos or just the music videos but at least the videos for Don't Cry, November Rain and Estranged were inspired by the short story "Without You" written by Del James who's been friends with Axl and been Guns and Roses road manager for decades. If you want to read it, here's a link.


EDIT: Well shit, I should've refreshed and been less distracted, heh.
 
SpitztheGreat

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antonz said:
yeah the whole song is about a troubled relationship. Its based on a short story a friend of Axl wrote. In the story a musician and his on and off relationship with his girlfriend who eventually kills herself. Through the video you can see she is completely unhappy even at the wedding there is no smile from her just looking off into the distance etc. November Rain , Don't Cry and Estranged are sort of a trilogy of Videos all related to the short story.
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Rewatching the video, they play her sadness really subtly. If it weren't for her look off to the side as they get into the car, I'd argue that there really wasn't much to go off of at all.
 
antonz

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SpitztheGreat said:
Rewatching the video, they play her sadness really subtly. If it weren't for her look off to the side as they get into the car, I'd argue that there really wasn't much to go off of at all.
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Yeah November rain is technically the middle song of the trilogy. Don't Cry is the first part and the video really goes into the messed up nature of the relationship with threat of suicide present in the video. November Rain is sort of a recap of the relationship and then estranged is the aftermath
 
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