4 Alternative Rock Songs With Disturbing Backstories

Alternative rock is loaded with dark, sad, heartwrenching, and downright disturbing songs with backstories that are actually rooted in reality. These four alternative rock songs have some seriously disturbing backstories, and you might have missed the true meaning behind these tracks. Let’s take a look!

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1. “Possum Kingdom” by The Toadies

This 1994 grunge hit from the ever-underrated Toadies has a disturbing backstory that is rooted in modern folklore, of all things. “Possum Kingdom” is based on Possum Kingdom Lake in northern Texas. The song follows a man who meets a very mysterious woman there, who entices him to more or less join her cult. He later does the same thing to another woman.

However, the folklore behind the song is fictional. But that didn’t stop some fans from developing an urban legend about a murderer who lived around the lake. Vaden Todd Lewis, the band’s frontman, had to dispel the rumors.

2. “Polly” by Nirvana

Nirvana (specifically Kurt Cobain) could make this list of alternative rock songs with disturbing meanings a few times over. I went with “Polly”, simply because it’s one of the most unsettling stories Cobain ever wrote for a song.

Cobain was inspired to write “Polly” by the haunting story of Gerald Friend, a violent kidnapper who assaulted a 12-year-old girl in Washington in 1960. After serving his sentence, he was released… and then assaulted another child immediately after leaving prison. She escaped with her life, Friend was arrested for the rest of his life, and the victim promptly sued the Washington DoC for releasing the offender.

3. “No Rain” by Blind Melon

These alternative rock one-hit wonders made it big with their 1992 song “No Rain”. It’s a solid song, but few might know the real, very sad story behind it.

The song was written by Blind Melon’s bassist, Brad Smith. Smith himself said that the song was written before Blind Melon even existed. Rather, he came up with the song while struggling to make it in Los Angeles, where he would busk on Venice Beach to buy food.

“It was inspired by just how tough it was in LA,” said Smith. “I had bouts of depression. So the song is about not being able to get out of bed and find excuses to face the day when you have really, in a way, nothing. It was like rock bottom. I wasn’t even on drugs or drinking. It was just tough.”

4. “Jeremy” by Pearl Jam

One of a few alternative rock songs by Pearl Jam with disturbing or sad backgrounds, “Jeremy” is a really tough one. Eddie Vedder wrote the song after reading a newspaper article about one Jeremy Wade Delle. Delle shot himself in front of his classmates in 1991 at the age of 15. Vedder wrote the song to give the story “reaction, to give it more importance.” 

The song also involves a student that Vedder went to school with in California, who committed a school shooting.

Photo by Kevin Mazur/WireImage

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