1990Released
2:31

Did You Know?

Interesting facts and trivia about We Die Young. By Songfacts®.

Alice in Chains lead singer Layne Staley explained in 1991: "'We Die Young' is about gang violence. That was something that was happening in Seattle, something that kinda opened our eyes. It just seemed like things were getting out of hand. Incidents where kids were getting shot, and getting their tennis shoes ripped off their dead bodies. It just seems like these kids are dying at younger and younger ages and getting involved in gang activity."

According to Jerry Cantrell, he was riding to a band rehearsal when he got the idea for song. "On the bus, there were all of these 10, 11, 12 year-olds with beepers dealing drugs," he said. "The sight of a young kid with drugs just scared me, which equaled We Die Young to me."

This was the band's first single, released in 1990 ahead of "Man In The Box." It was the title track of a 3-song EP that was their first release on Columbia Records.

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Song Analysis

Key, BPM (tempo) and time signature of We Die Young.
C♯Key
MajorMode
4/4Time Signature
126BPM

Album

The album We Die Young is released on.

Released By

The record label that has released We Die Young.
Columbia
(P) 1990 SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT INC.

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5.8MArtists
73.6MSongs
12.3MAlbums
6.3KGenres
2.5MLabels
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