In a dream my memory has stored.
Listening to Tom Petty's "You Don't Know How It Feels" yesterday I was struck by how much it reminded me of Nirvana's "On A Plain." "Smells Like Teen Spirit" is the Nirvana song that gets my heart pumping and "Heart-Shaped Box" is the one I sing along to at the top of my lungs but in a lot ways "On A Plain" is my favorite Nirvana song. Nirvana sometimes has a reputation as a really angry band but I've never seen them that way. Kurt's lyrics are a little too wry, too self-aware to reach the lathered outrage Eddie Vedder poured into his lyrics. Even at its angriest --- In Utero's B side, for example --- Kurt's voice is more of a wail than a howl; compare it to Layne Staley's, which some Alice In Chains songs sounds like it was recorded in the pit of Hell itself. Kurt injected a lot of mockery and self-deprecation into his angst, and I don't think his lyrics get recognized for just how funny some of them are. Kurt loved wordplay and puns and inside jokes, and all of that is in "On a Plain."
For example, you have to love a song (one without instrumental introduction, even!) that begins with, "I'll start this off without any words.":)
"On a Plain" was the last song written for Nevermind. Like most Nirvana songs, it's about a lot at once, including the usual suspects of Kurt's childhood and drug abuse (most Nirvana songs are all over the map that way; there are some that are more streamlined with their subject matter --- "Smells Like Teen Spirit" is about the joy and terror and chaos of performing, while "Come As You Are" is about ambivalence and expectation but in a lot of songs what it's about changes from verse to verse, and sometimes from line to line.) At its core, though, "On A Plain" is about songwriting --- specifically writer's block.:) Kurt wrote the song on the plane taking him to the recording session, knowing that he was supposed to have a finished album when he touched down (yes, the whole chorus is a pun. And yet I love it anyway:). Anyone who's been flush up against a deadline can emphasize with the exasperated "What the hell am I trying to say?" of the bridge. (And how awesome is it that there's a bridge? How many grunge writers were bothering to use bridges?)
That and the next lines, "It is now time to make it unclear/To write off lines that don't make sense" are every bit as self-mocking as the much more famous "Teenage angst has paid off well/Now I'm bored and old" line from "Serve the Servants." Kurt knew what he was doing; this is not haphazard songwriting filled with accidental metaphors (looking directly at you, Coldplay). In a Nirvana song, if there's a bizarre word choice Kurt damn well meant for it to be there.:)
I think the most representative set of lyrics for Nirvana as a whole come from this song: "My mother died every night/It's safe to say you can quote me on that." The first line refers to Wendy Cobain's disastrous, abusive marriage, the second to a running gag between Kurt, Krist and Dave while Nevermind was in the works. His parents' relationship was the defining tragedy of his life ("That legendary divorce is such a bore"); it fueled so many of Kurt's songs and contributed to his drug addiction. And here he pairs it with a silly throwaway reference that's meaningless to all but a handful of people; you can almost see Kurt in his aisle seat rolling his eyes at how maudlin that first line sounded and so he does the songwriting equivalant of drawing a big black line through it.
That's the essential push-me-pull-you dynamic of Nirvana, raw pain with a knowing smirk, the whispered verse and the screamed chorus. Kurt was never a great storyteller; none of his songs are the narratives Springsteen and Bono and Eddie Vedder manage. What they are is a stripped bare, honest look into the tangled mind of their composer in all of his exhausted, sardonic, self-mocking glory. There are more polished bands out there, bands with better singers and more skillful musicians, but none that have crawled into my head and stayed there like Nirvana.
"One more special message to go/And then I'm done, and I can go home/I love myself better than you/I know it's wrong so what should I do?"
***
Back to Christmas shopping.:)
For example, you have to love a song (one without instrumental introduction, even!) that begins with, "I'll start this off without any words.":)
"On a Plain" was the last song written for Nevermind. Like most Nirvana songs, it's about a lot at once, including the usual suspects of Kurt's childhood and drug abuse (most Nirvana songs are all over the map that way; there are some that are more streamlined with their subject matter --- "Smells Like Teen Spirit" is about the joy and terror and chaos of performing, while "Come As You Are" is about ambivalence and expectation but in a lot of songs what it's about changes from verse to verse, and sometimes from line to line.) At its core, though, "On A Plain" is about songwriting --- specifically writer's block.:) Kurt wrote the song on the plane taking him to the recording session, knowing that he was supposed to have a finished album when he touched down (yes, the whole chorus is a pun. And yet I love it anyway:). Anyone who's been flush up against a deadline can emphasize with the exasperated "What the hell am I trying to say?" of the bridge. (And how awesome is it that there's a bridge? How many grunge writers were bothering to use bridges?)
That and the next lines, "It is now time to make it unclear/To write off lines that don't make sense" are every bit as self-mocking as the much more famous "Teenage angst has paid off well/Now I'm bored and old" line from "Serve the Servants." Kurt knew what he was doing; this is not haphazard songwriting filled with accidental metaphors (looking directly at you, Coldplay). In a Nirvana song, if there's a bizarre word choice Kurt damn well meant for it to be there.:)
I think the most representative set of lyrics for Nirvana as a whole come from this song: "My mother died every night/It's safe to say you can quote me on that." The first line refers to Wendy Cobain's disastrous, abusive marriage, the second to a running gag between Kurt, Krist and Dave while Nevermind was in the works. His parents' relationship was the defining tragedy of his life ("That legendary divorce is such a bore"); it fueled so many of Kurt's songs and contributed to his drug addiction. And here he pairs it with a silly throwaway reference that's meaningless to all but a handful of people; you can almost see Kurt in his aisle seat rolling his eyes at how maudlin that first line sounded and so he does the songwriting equivalant of drawing a big black line through it.
That's the essential push-me-pull-you dynamic of Nirvana, raw pain with a knowing smirk, the whispered verse and the screamed chorus. Kurt was never a great storyteller; none of his songs are the narratives Springsteen and Bono and Eddie Vedder manage. What they are is a stripped bare, honest look into the tangled mind of their composer in all of his exhausted, sardonic, self-mocking glory. There are more polished bands out there, bands with better singers and more skillful musicians, but none that have crawled into my head and stayed there like Nirvana.
"One more special message to go/And then I'm done, and I can go home/I love myself better than you/I know it's wrong so what should I do?"
***
Back to Christmas shopping.:)