"Where Did You Sleep Last Night" (live) by Nirvana
Traditional (Arranged by Lead Belly)
Produced by Alex Colletti, Scott Litt, Nirvana
Released on Unplugged in New York (November 1, 1994)
Released as a single, 1995
Warning: The video contains a curse word at the very beginning
For a long time I didn't really like Nirvana. They were a hard rock band, so I certainly liked a lot of their songs, but I underrated them, mostly because it seemed like the rest of the world was wildly overrating them. I'll do that sometimes. I didn't see Titanic for 20 years because of all the hype surrounding it. I didn't give Harry Potter a try until about 12 years after the first book was published. When it seems like everyone loves something, my first reaction is to assume that it can't be all that great.
With Nirvana, the overhyping started early and then continued accelerating after Kurt Cobain's untimely death. But even before Cobain died, I heard people comparing him to Jimi Hendrix and calling him an all-time great guitarist and songwriter. It was too much; while I liked his music, it didn't seem that amazing. (Also being a left-handed guitarist from Aberdeen does not make you Jimi Hendrix. No one will ever be Jimi Hendrix.) The other thing that affected my opinion at the time was that I really liked Pearl Jam better, and while they also got a lot of hype and were wildly popular, I couldn't figure out why critics always seemed to lay so much more praise on Nirvana. Everything about Nirvana during the 1990's seemed too overblown.
None of that stuff really bothers me now. It's much easier, with the passage of time, to simply see Nirvana as a great, genre-defining band, and Kurt Cobain as a fantastic songwriter. I like Pearl Jam a little bit more, but those comparisons seem less important now than they did when I was a teenager. All that being said, I'll still push back a bit when Nirvana's legacy gets overrated (Rolling Stone magazine ranking Nevermind as the 6th greatest album of all-time is a bit of a stretch).
So now I can say that Nirvana was, for better or worse, a cultural phenomenon, and one of the most important moments of their short career was their appearance on MTV's Unplugged.
Because of its timing and the decorations that Cobain asked for and the overall tone of the acoustic show, Nirvana's appearance on Unplugged will always be closely associated with his death. After Cobain committed suicide, MTV replayed this show seemingly continuously. It was a fantastic show, but it was unlike any other show they had ever played.
Nirvana gained a lot of early fame and notoriety for the way they demolished equipment at their shows: guitars were smashed; bass guitars were flung into the air; Cobain would throw himself into the drum set in a way that had to hurt him more than the drums. This unplugged show, instead, was quiet and subdued. Cobain was contemplative and funny. About half of the songs played were covers, and they didn't play many hits, but it all seemed to work in an odd way. Even without the theatrics and the loudness, they showed that they were a great band who could play great music in any setting.
This song always stuck out to me from the show. It's a cool song, but it seemed like an odd choice to close their set with. It wasn't a hit: even though it's a song that's over 100 years old, I hadn't heard it before that show. I always enjoy listening to this performance, but it is also a performance that needs to be seen at least once, mostly because of one moment towards the end of the song.
One of my fraternity brothers first pointed this out to me while we were watching this together in college. Towards the end of the song, my friend started talking about this look Cobain gives at the end of the song. I hadn't noticed it before, but just as they were finishing, and the instruments go quiet for a few moments while Cobain sings the last line of the chorus for the last time, he draws in a breath, and his eyes go to some place I cannot describe (see for yourself at about the 4:50 mark of the video). It's haunting. I don't know what it meant or why he made that face at that moment, but I immediately understood why my friend had felt the need to point it out to me.
Where did Kurt Cobain go in that moment? What did he see? What was he feeling? Was it something about the song that really spoke to him in that moment? Did it mean anything at all, or was it just him hamming it up in a weird way for the camera?
Who knows? After that moment, the band finished the song, and it was over. Everything is back to normal. Cobain pretends like he's going to smash his guitar, but doesn't. He takes a drink from one of those disposable cups that were everywhere in the 1990's, get's a light from a fan (because people still smoked indoors back then), signed a few autographs, and chatted with his friend and bandmate Krist Novoselic. The show may have ended, but that look will never leave my head. It's an odd thing to dwell on from an incredible performance, but Nirvana was sometimes an odd band. And Cobain's death a few months later made it feel like that look could have meant something.
It probably didn't, but I'll still be thinking about it the next time I hear this song or see this video.
Right now, "Where Did You Sleep Last Night" (live) by Nirvana is, probably, my 48th favorite song of all time.
No comments:
Post a Comment