Typically, In Utero’s calmest moment is a troubled paean to drugged-out indolence: the lyrics alternate between a kind of glassy-eyed transcendence and a fretful acknowledgment that the only time the narrator is happy is when they’re stoned, their gathering darkness scratching at the sweetness of the tune and the simplicity of the arrangement. Dave Grohl compared it to Bohemian Rhapsody, which is perhaps pushing it a bit. Kurt Cobain claimed Drain You was the equal of “or better than” Smells Like Teen Spirit, and he had a point: another in his line of slightly warped love songs, it shifts from a sparkling verse to an extended, improvised and faintly psychedelic interlude, by way of squeaky toys and aerosols being sprayed, and ends with one of Cobain’s most startling screams. No one, least of all Nirvana themselves, could have predicted Nevermind’s success, but with hindsight, their early catalogue is sprinkled with suggestions that they were not the same as their grunge peers, among them the B-side Been a Son: a study of teenage alienation and gender that dispenses with the heaviness of Bleach in favour of a simple, relentless, unforgettable melody. Its lyrics offered the stark image of a homeless person dying, unnoticed, under a tarpaulin by a river, the music was hushed and haunting, Cobain’s voice barely rising above a murmur. The title of Nevermind’s most poignant track turned the Beatles’ most ardent love song into a reference to an obstruction. But they had a goofy sense of humour, at least at first: School’s power comes from the ridiculous level of import the music’s heaviness lends a lyric about getting a job as a janitor at your former alma mater, and envying the students’ break time. Given what happened to Cobain, there is an understandable tendency to look for angst throughout Nirvana’s catalogue. Nirvana while on tour in Germany in 1991 (left to right): Dave Grohl, Kurt Cobain and Krist Novoselic. The song itself is stark and acoustic: it rams its subject matter in the listener’s face, rather than coating it in distortion and rock dynamics. No song came to represent the gulf between Nirvana and some sections of their newfound audience quite as starkly as Polly, a horrifying depiction of a rape that ended up cited in an actual rape case: its perpetrators sang it to their victim. He had clearly never heard the scourging din of Scentless Apprentice, on which Cobain’s agonised screaming of the seemingly innocuous phrase offers a deeply disturbing insight into the singer’s post-fame state of mind. The comedian Billy Connolly once opined that the words “go away” could never have the same impact as the words “fuck off”. A posthumous remix included on the deluxe version of In Utero reveals its melancholy potency. Sappy (1990-93)ĭepending on your perspective, a song about Kurt Cobain’s pet turtle or an abusive relationship, Sappy was an outtake that deserved better, something Nirvana knew, playing it live for years and recording it over and over before defeatedly slipping it out as a hidden track on a charity compilation. It sounds both horrified and resigned: a man who, by all accounts, had been very ambitious cautioning to be careful what you wish for. It says something about Nirvana’s skill that swathes of In Utero deal with the usually dispiriting topic of a band complaining about their treatment by the press without slipping into sanctimonious Mr Writer-ish finger wagging.
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