What is the meaning of Last Kiss by Pearl Jam?

Everybody knows the song “Last Kiss.” Everybody’s heard it at least once, and after they do, they tend to remember it. The haunting refrain “Oh Where Oh Where Can My Baby Be?” just stays with you, cuts through whatever else is going on around you and makes you listen a little closer.  It makes you feel the all-encompassing sense of loss, just a little, but harder. The song tells the all too tragically common story of a car accident. Simply. No frills, no pretensions, just pure, sadly beautiful loss.

Most people these days know “Last Kiss” by Pearl Jam’s cover, which was a smash hit in 1999, peaking at No. 2 on Billboard’s charts to become the band’s highest grossing single ever.

This was the first version I heard, and though the lyrics stayed with me, there was something about this souped up alt-rock version that struck me as inauthentic, that just rubbed me the wrong way. My suspicion was validated when I heard that it was a cover, and in fact, one in a long and storied line of them. The song was first written in 1961 by a soul/country singer named Wayne Cochran, who lived in rural Georgia near Barnesville.

He had already been planning a song about one of the car accidents that were so common on the area’s dark and poorly paved roadways, when a teenage couple, the subject of the song, out on a date on a rainy night in December, fatally struck a tractor trailer. The tune was a local hit, and in 1964, a Texas record company bought and re-recorded it with J. Frank Wilson and the Cavaliers.  It was nationally released to instant commercial success. Thereafter, “Last Kiss” became something of a 20th Century American folk ballad, a part of the collective musical repertoire, picked up again in 1973 by the Canadian group Wednesday, and again and again by dozens of South American groups. The song clearly strikes a collective nerve. There’s a purity in the singer’s bafflement– a helplessness in the face of random death. The listener may not believe that he lost “the love of his life,” but the unadorned innocence of the statement only makes it more poignant. The song strikes you as a story that just needed to be told, no matter how common it is, and while it might depress you momentarily, it will perhaps comfort you with more consideration. Death is one of the only truly universal facts of life. It touches all of us at one point or another, but when it does, we too easily convince ourselves that no one else could understand. The enduring effectiveness of “Last Kiss,” which you can see in the faces of every person who hears it, no matter who plays it, should put the lie to this belief.

‘Last Kiss’ is the based on a true story of a pair of 16 year olds, Jeanette Clark and JL Hancock, on a date in Barnesville, Georgia just before Christmas in 1962.  Their car hit a tractor-trailer and they instantly lost their lives.

The song was written by Wayne Cochrane who lived around 15 miles from the crash site and was in the middle of writing a song about all the crashes he saw in that area. He was halfway finished writing “Last Kiss” when he heard about the tragedy and because of the emotional response from the community decided to dedicate his song to Jeanette Clark.

The band Pearl Jam decided to record a version after singer Eddie Vedder found an old record of the song at an antique store in Seattle. They recorded the song at a sound check before a concert in 1998 and released it as a Christmas single for their fans. Radio stations started playing it and it gained popularity around the world. Pearl Jam decided to release it as a single to the public and gave the proceeds to a charity helping Kosovo refugees.

I read an article on the internet about how this song was about a group of teens no older than 17 and were out driving and got in a wreck with a flatbed logging truck. Originally the song was released by Wayne Cochran & the C.C. Riders later covered by Frank J. Wilson and the Cavaliers only to be covered yet again by Pearl Jam. This part was copied and pasted from the site I read the article and respects to them.
~~~~~~~~"Sixteen-year-old Jeanette Clark was out on a date in Barnesville, Georgia on
December 22, 1962, the Saturday before Christmas. She was with a group
of friends in a 1954 Chevrolet. J. L. Hancock, also sixteen, was driving the
car in heavy traffic and while traveling on Highway 341, collided with a trailer
truck. Clark, Hancock, and another teenager were killed, and two other teens
in the car were seriously injured. Cochran dedicated the song to Clark.~~~~~~~~

If you wanna see the site the link is below

http://www.listzblog.com/top_ten_teenage_tragedy_songs_music_history_list.html

...but your activity and behavior on this website made us think that you are a bot.

1. To protect this website, we cannot process your request right now.
2. If you think this is an error, please contact us copying below ID in the email.

What does the Last Kiss mean?

WHO IS Last Kiss about by Taylor Swift?

What is the meaning behind Pearl Jam?

Why did Pearl Jam cover Last Kiss?