This '90s Anthem By Pearl Jam Was Born From Eddie Vedder's Stunning Family Secret

We can't even begin to talk about grunge without talking about Pearl Jam. One of the Seattle scene's OG big four along with Nirvana, Soundgarden, and Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam's 1991 debut album "Ten" is a bonafide masterpiece that graced us with three massive hit singles in a row: "Alive," "Even Flow," and "Jeremy." And while "Jeremy" wins for most distressing music video (with a disturbing, hidden meaning), it's "Alive" that wins for most surprising firsthand inspiration, as the song took root in a real-life family secret of singer Eddie Vedder's.

Vedder has never gone into extreme detail about the story that inspired "Alive." As Vedder told writer Jessica Letkemann in 1999 (via Northwest Passage), "Alive" comes from, "this strange twist in my life having to do with a father that I didn't know was my father until later in my adolescent years." Vedder's mother concealed his actual parentage from him for unknown reasons, though Vedder used to catch glimpses of surprise or recognition on her face when she saw things in him that came from his true father. "Sometimes we're a little bit like carbon copies," Vedder told Letkemann. One of these carbon-copied attributes was musical talent, as Vedder's mother said his real father, "was like a lounge singer or something."

Hence, the story described in "Alive," a song that begins with the lyrics, "'Son,' she said, 'have I got a little story for you / What you thought was your daddy was nothing but a... / While you were sitting home alone at age thirteen / Your real daddy was dying.'" The story doesn't end there, though. Vedder took this real-life foundation and embellished it with some fictional elements that involve incest.

Eddie Vedder opened up a bit in a 1993 interview with Rolling Stone very early on in Pearl Jam's career, after "Ten" and before their sophomore effort, "Vs." In that interview, Vedder describes not getting along with his stepfather (though, pointedly, he never uses the word "stepfather"). "There were fights and bad, bad scenes," Vedder said, "I was kind of on my own at a pretty young age. I never finished high school."

He continues by saying that his mom took a trip from Chicago to San Diego specifically to tell him about his parentage in person. "I know he's not my father," Vedder said of his stepfather (per Rolling Stone), "he's a f***ing as***le." In reply, his mom said, "Oh, Eddie, he's really not your father." At the time, Vedder was trying to get his music career off the ground and was using his stepfather's last name, Mueller, rather than his mother's maiden name, Vedder. The timeline isn't perfectly clear, but come 1990 Vedder joined Pearl Jam as the vocalist following the death of singer Andrew Wood of Mother Love Bone, when guitarist Stone Gossard and bassist Jeff Ament to form a new band.

Things get more complicated than that, though. Vedder's mom didn't take her trip to San Diego just to tell him who his real father was. Just as the lyrics to "Alive" say, she visited Vedder to tell him that his real father was dead. He'd died of multiple sclerosis (MS). In fact, Vedder recalled meeting him a few times growing up after he was hospitalized, but never knowing who he was.

At this point, you might be thinking that the tale of Vedder's parentage — the story behind "Alive" — couldn't get more messed up. Well, think again. Vedder took his family secret and embellished it for the Pearl Jam hit. This part might not be clear from the song's lyrics, as they're a bit vague and require interpretation. But as the second verse to "Alive" begins, "While she walks slowly across a young man's room / She said, 'I'm ready for you.'" Who is the "she" in these lyrics? The mother figure who revealed to her son that her father was his stepfather. And what is she ready for? Sex with her son.

In the aforementioned, 1993 Rolling Stone interview, Vedder elaborated on this facet of the story and lyrics of "Alive." Speaking of the mother character's love for her husband, Vedder says, "And the guy dies. How could you ever get him back? But the son. He looks exactly like him. It's uncanny. So she wants him. The son is oblivious to it all. He doesn't know what the f**k is going on." The only thing the son knows is, "I'm still alive." Hence, the song's name.

From there, "Alive" actually becomes the first song in a three-part song tale commonly known as the "Momma-Son" trilogy (aka, the "Mamasan" trilogy), followed by "Once" from "Ten" and "Footsteps," the B-side to "Jeremy." In this extended story, the son character from "Alive" becomes a serial killer ("Once") who goes to prison ("Footsteps"). As Vedder relatedly said in his Rolling Stone interview, "I'm just glad I became a songwriter."