4 Grunge Songs Inspired By True Events

There are times when life reflects art. When a work is so strong that people in the real world mimic it, quote it, or even recreate their surroundings to copy it perfectly. But just as life can imitate art, art can do the same in reverse. Take music, for example. Some of our favorite songs were ripped right from newspaper headlines.

When it comes to grunge music, there are several examples of tracks taking their subject matter from current events. Here, we wanted to explore four such offerings. A quartet of tunes that tell true stories. Like movies based on real-life occurrences, these grunge songs are inspired by true events.

“Rooster” – Alice in Chains from Dirt (1993)

Written by Alice in Chains co-frontman Jerry Cantrell, this song was inspired by his father, Jerry Cantrell Sr., an army veteran who served in the Vietnam War. As a boy, Cantrell Sr. was nicknamed Rooster. But when he returned from the war, he was shaken. Combat had done severe damage to his psyche, and his son, the future musician, could see it. The situation at home was so bad, in fact, that his family later left his father. But “Rooster” was a way of connecting father with son. “It meant a lot to him that I wrote it. It brought us closer,” AIC’s guitarist said in 2006 in an interview with Team Rock.

“Jeremy” – Pearl Jam from Ten (1992)

This song is about gun violence in schools. An all-too-familiar theme that still somehow sadly resonates today. But it was a subject that Pearl Jam and lead vocalist Eddie Vedder were bringing attention to over 30 years ago, telling the story of a 15-year-old kid who brought a gun to school and shot himself dead in his classroom in front of his classmates. It’s a song that’s actually based on two different true stories. One Vedder read about in the paper (the 15-year-old) and another he knew about from personal experience.

“I actually knew somebody in junior high school, in San Diego, California, that did the same thing, just about, didn’t take his life but ended up shooting up an oceanography room,” Vedder said in a 1991 interview. “I remember being in the halls and hearing it and I had actually had altercations with this kid in the past. I was kind of a rebellious fifth-grader and I think we got in fights and stuff. So it’s a bit about this kid named Jeremy and it’s also a bit about a kid named Brian that I knew and I don’t know.”

“Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge On Seattle” – Nirvana from In Utero (1993)

The namesake for this song title was a real person. Frances Farmer was an actress from Seattle who struggled with mental health. Farmer, who was in the 1936 movie Rhythm on the Range with actor (and fellow Washingtonian) Bing Crosby, faced involuntary institutional commitments several times during her life. She also said she was abused during her life, sadly. Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain and his wife Courtney Love were said to feel a certain kinship to Farmer for the way she was treated in the media. And so, her life inspired this buzzy song on the band’s third studio LP.

“Like Suicide” Soundgarden from Superunknown (1993)

This song, written by Soundgarden frontman and lead vocalist Chris Cornell, was inspired when he saw a bird fly into a window of his home. Ever the curious soul, Cornell went outside and found the badly injured animal and decided to kill it, hitting it with a brick to end both its life and its pain. That event led to this deep, brooding final track from the band’s hit 1993 LP, Superunknown.