This song is about Eddie Vedder's illness during the band's Vitalogy tour. Vedder got very sick, probably from food poisoning, and Pearl Jam had to cancel some shows. The trouble started at a show in San Francisco on June 24, 1995, when Vedder got through seven songs before he couldn't go on. Luckily, Neil Young was on hand and stepped up to the mic, fronting the band for another 14 songs. This didn't sit well with the crowd but it did avert a riot. Pearl Jam had been working with Young on his Mirror Ball album.
Mike McCready simulated the mosquito buzz by playing slide guitar on this song. For a slide, he used a Zippo lighter given to Eddie Vedder by his grandfather.
"Red Mosquito" is part of Pearl Jam's fourth album, No Code. They didn't make any videos for it and refused to do any interviews, which gave them an air of mystery but made promotion difficult, since the fascination with grunge had waned by 1996. The band was more than happy to pare down and play to smaller groups of more ardent fans. Vedder would sometimes feel guilty when Pearl Jam was selling millions of albums because he knew there were so many deserving bands that were being ignored.
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