The 1993 song that defined Nirvana, according to Dave Grohl: “If I had to pick one”
There is no preparation that comes when a band like Nirvana explodes on the scene.
Every single industry head may have been racing to find “the next Nirvana” as soon as ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ began making the rounds on the radio, but the only way that can happen again is when someone comes out of the blue and writes something that leaves the rest of the music scene absolutely delirious. Just ask Bruce Springsteen.
Speaking to Guitar World in 1995, the Boss explained the mammoth yet unlikely impact that the Seattle rockers had almost instantly. “That’s a band that reset the rules of the game. They changed everything, they opened a vein of freedom that didn’t exist previously,” he said.
The gruff ‘Born to Run’ singer added, “The singer [Kurt Cobain] did something very similar to what Dylan did in the ’60s, which was to sound different and get on the radio. Your guitarist could sound different and get heard. So there are a lot of very fundamental rules that they reset, and that type of band is very few and far between.”
Given Springsteen’s praise for Dylan over the years, that’s about as lofty as adulation for the grunge outfit has ever gotten. Maybe the reason for that is because they were never entirely a ‘grunge’ band. Dave Grohl may not have been the writer he is today back then, but he knew that there was something a bit more feral going on with them than the rest of the Seattle scene.
In Grohl’s own words, there was no telling whether Nirvana were going to be one of the best rock and roll bands of all time or an absolute trainwreck from one gig to the next. They managed to sound transcendent more often than not, but it wasn’t out of the question for them to unleash hell whenever they went onstage as well, whether that was Kurt Cobain leaping into the drum set or throwing himself into the crowd with no real sense of self-preservation.
But when looking at every single band that came out of Seattle, do you notice how none of them defined themselves as “grunge” bands? Oh, there were grunge fashions and people charging big bucks for a flannel shirt that could be found at a local thrift store, but when it came to the ‘Big 4’ of the genre, none of them really sound the same apart from being defined as “alternative music”.
Pearl Jam was a love letter to classic rock, and while Soundgarden was the one band that epitomised the genre of grunge the most, they were never content staying in one style for too long, always flirting with everything from prog to metal to alternative depending on how they felt. Alice in Chains would always be a better middle ground between alt-rock and hair-metal, but Nirvana’s roots were always in punk.
“It has a stripped down simple structure, it wasn’t planned at all.”
Dave Grohl
Cobain has always cited punk bands as his major influences, and since Grohl had come from the DC punk scene that had birthed bands like Minor Threat, he was never afraid to wear those credentials on his sleeve. But since Nevermind sounded too polished for Cobain’s taste, he knew the next best thing for him to do was to take everything that sounded nice about his magnum opus and shred it up, which is probably why people didn’t take to In Utero immediately.
From Grohl’s perspective, though, some of the album’s more unhinged moments were a better example of what they were supposed to be, saying, “If I had to pick one song that exemplifies the punk ethic or sound in our music, it’d be ‘Tourettes’.”
He added, “It has a stripped-down, simple structure. It wasn’t planned at all; it just kinda happened in rehearsal. Kurt started playing this riff, and Krist and I jumped in. I don’t think there were any lyrics to it at all, to me it just sounds like a bunch of screaming and mumbling.” In his view, that exemplified what the band were all about far more than ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ and their other big hits.
The song itself is incredibly organic in that respect, but it’s also not as easy on the ears as something like ‘Come As You Are’. There’s a definite ‘couldn’t care less’ attitude about the way the band is going for it, and given that Cobain’s lines blur more towards gibberish towards the end of the song, it’s clear that they are going more for capturing a feeling than worrying about whether every single word is completely audible.
Then again, it’s a little bit interesting seeing how well this tune epitomises what Nirvana was all about. It was a bit repulsive and in-your-face in many respects, but at the same time, not many people could make something as unhinged as this tune actually seem catchy in less than two minutes. Alas, when you look at Cobain’s key influences and all the punk bands like Wipers therein, you can see where both the song and Nirvana truly come from.
