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Pearl Jam released the song "Why Go" in 1991 off their album
Ten.
"Why Go" is about a girl who was kept in a mental institution against her will and kept "sick" so the insurance company keeps paying and so the medical professionals can turn her into something fake, "another clone."
In a 1991 radio interview Eddie Vedder said, "The song 'Why Go' was written about a specific girl in Chicago... I think her mom caught her smoking pot or something. She was about 13 years old and she was just fine. I think her mom thought she had some troubles when I think it was really maybe the parents that were having troubles and the next thing you know, this young girl was in a hospital. They kept her there for quite a long time. She was so strong that she refused to accept many of the accusations of her doing terrible things when she wasn't really doing anything and the next thing you know, she'd been hospitalized for like two years. The fact is that this is going on all over the place and this insurance thing that goes on with hospitals and insurance and these kind of counseling... prisons that they set up and it's really something that I think is really addressed subliminally in the song, but it has to be addressed on a bigger level. It happens everywhere and I just hope that someday we're able to change the fact that it is happening."
And he told a Canadian journalist, "When you're inside and you have no control and when you're the 14-year-old version of
Frances Farmer
, you have reasons to be angry. You have reasons to be angry when your parents, who are very sheltered themselves, make decisions as to what you should experience in your life and what's normal and what's not. And then you've got institutions on the other side, who are taking large money amounts of money through insurance companies by diagnosing their children unfit."
"It's happening a lot in American suburbs," he added. "People who don't really pay a lot of attention to their kids and don't really know how to deal with them, they just put their kids in hospitals."
In the liner notes for
Ten
the song is dedicated to a girl named Heather.
Nikki "Nikilicious" Montgomery
I'm a Central Wisconsin girl born and raised. I grew up in Port Edwards and participated in cheerleading, basketball, volleyball and softball as well as many clubs like National Honor Society, SADD, yearbook and forensics. I was a very busy high school student and still managed to get good enough grades to go to college at UW-Stevens Point where I was just as busy between working 3 jobs including executive staff positions at the campus alternative rock radio station and volunteering at the campus television station.
After graduation I thought I would take my BA in Mass Communications with emphasis in Broadcasting and Journalism and Minor in Political Science and become a big time reporter in some major city. But instead my internship with our news station here at Midwest Communications turned into a part-time job and opened the door to the morning show co-host position at WDEZ. After 9 1/4 years of fun in the mornings I was promoted to Assistant Brand Manager and moved to The Workday Getaway.
I couldn't deny my love for rock anymore! It was time dive head first into the genre I spent my formative years listening to day in and day out. When the opportunity arose for me to become the Brand Manager for Rock 94.7 and host the morning show I couldn't pass it up.
I'm so happy that I stayed in Central Wisconsin I couldn't imagine raising my three daughters anywhere else.
Favorite band: STP
First concert: Bryan Adams 1992 at the Target Center in Minneapolis (I was 12)
Favorite color: Yellow
Favorite pasttime: Watching Walking Dead, American Horror Story and Covert Affairs