Dave Grohl, live at Cat’s Cradle, 1991.
The Record - Kurt Cobain talks about the songs on ‘Nevermind.’
Smells Like Teen Spirit: “My generation’s apathy. I’m disgusted with it. I’m disgusted with my own apathy too, for being spineless and not always standing up against racism, sexism, and all those other isms the counterculture has been whining about for years.”
In Bloom: “Reproduction.”
Come As You Are: “An old-fashioned love song coming down in three-part harmony.”
Breed: “Getting into Middle America. Marrying at age 18, getting pregnant, stuck with a baby - and not wanting it.”
Lithium: “People who are secluded for too long go insane and as a last resort they often use religion to keep alive. In the song, a guy’s lost his girl and his friends and he’s brooding. He’s decided to find God before he kills himself. It’s hard for me to understand the need for a vice like that but I can appreciate it too. People need vices.”
Polly: “Rape.”
Territorial Pissings: “In the animal kingdom, the male will often piss in certain areas to claim his territory, and I see macho men reacting towards sex and power in the same way. I’d like to see these lost souls strung up by their balls with pages of scum manifesto stapled to their bodies.”
Drain You: “Almost all of the songs on the album are about love - or confusion, which usually is the result of love. Outcries of confusion about love and not understanding relationships, not just with your mate but with anybody, with yourself, with animals, etc.”
Lounge Act: “Love, problems.”
Stay Away: “Bitching and complaining.”
On A Plain: “Love again.”
Something In The Way: “Love - plain and simple.”
Nirvana Revealed: Backstage diaries tell of Kurt Cobain’s passion for Scotland.
The first thing you notice about Kurt is his piercing blue eyes. He has peroxide hair in between two styles and two colours, blond with darker roots. It looks like he’s growing it in with signs of a shorter, more sensible crop from about six months before.
He looks undernourished, slightly sick, as if needing or just recovering from surgery. At the time, I didn’t know about his prescribed medication.
As a supposedly hyperactive four-year-old, he was prescribed Ritalin for a period of three months and later in life, unrelated painful stomach problems would require ongoing medical monitoring.
He wore gloves with the ends cut off, an Oxfam raincoat and a cardigan with holes in it.
He preferred roll-ups rather than filtered cigarettes. I watched as he expertly created a perfectly formed homemade cigarette.
Someone came up with the idea of doing a Nirvana song with PJ Harvey. Kurt loved her and we love her and we thought, ‘Yeah, what would we do?’ I said: ‘God, what if we were to do ‘Milk It’ from ‘In Utero’ with Polly singing?’ We all looked at each other like, ‘Woah, that would be amazing…’ and then she couldn’t do it!”
