"I can barely, especially on a bad night like tonight, get through 'Teen Spirit,'" he added to Rolling Stone. By the end of their run, he actively resented playing the track live. And the song's ubiquity hounded Cobain for the rest of his career, signifying his conflicted relationship with fame. Due in part to its flannel-heavy music video, itself a definitive moment of the grunge era, "Teen Spirit" swelled into a culture-defining moment that eclipsed Nirvana itself. From its dark, enchanting vocal melody to its quiet-loud leap to its signature power-chord churn - a minor-key surge that, like Boston's "More Than a Feeling," inspired countless teenagers to pick up a cheap pawn-shop guitar - there isn't a more expertly crafted rock song to emerge from the entire decade.
And it's hard to argue against the result. "I was trying to write the ultimate pop song," Cobain told Rolling Stone of this larger-than-life Pixies homage. "Smells Like Teen Spirit," Nevermind (1991) But I knew the majority of the people wouldn’t understand it." The sarcasm flew over the head of Oasis guitarist Noel Gallagher, who once said the song's "fucking rubbish" attitude inspired him to write "Live Forever." That's one roundabout way to score a hit.Ģ. I wanted it to be the title of the album for a long time. 'He isn’t satisfied with anything.' And I thought it was a funny title. I’m thought of as this pissy, complaining, freaked–out schizophrenic who wants to kill himself all the time. It was totally satirical, making fun of ourselves. We knew people wouldn’t get it they’d take it too seriously. "And that had a bit to do with why we decided to take it off. "Nothing more than a joke," he told Rolling Stone of the name. Cobain originally wanted to use the title - a joke about his public perception - for In Utero, but he wisely backed off the idea.
The backstory of this Brazil recording, a demented swirl of sci-fi feedback and carnivalesque bass, is much more intriguing than the song itself. "I Hate Myself and Want to Die," The Beavis and Butthead Experience (1993)