Awkward entertainment: The Nirvana song Kurt Cobain called “an embarrassment to play”
No band defines grunge quite like Nirvana, and no song defines grunge quite like ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’. Released in 1991 as the first glimpse at their sophomore offering, Nevermind, the track paired softly eerie verses with a thunderous chorus and never-ending repetitions of the word “Hello.” Catchy and cool all at once, it attracted the attention of kids who had grown tired of hair metal and were in pursuit of something greater and something grungier.
But ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ didn’t only capture the attention of college students and critics of the early 1990s. In the decades since its release, the single has become one of the most well-known and well-loved songs of all time, with a riff that still attracts budding guitarists to this day. You’d be hard pressed to find a grunge playlist that doesn’t include ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’.
‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ would become Nirvana’s signature track, as well as the defining soundtrack of 1990s kids and grunge enthusiasts, but the band themselves quickly grew tired of it. Overwhelmed by the success it brought them, they developed a complicated relationship with the song. Kurt Cobain once even deemed it “an embarrassment to play.”
During a conversation with Rolling Stone, the grunge frontman spoke about exempting ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ from their setlist that night. “I don’t even remember the guitar solo on ‘Teen Spirit’,” he admitted, “It would take me five minutes to sit in the catering room and learn the solo.” He went on to share his dislike for the success of the track, particularly because it came to overshadow his other work.
“There are so many other songs I’ve written that are as good, if not better,” Cobain commented, citing ‘Drain You’ as an example. Featuring on the iconic Nevermind with ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’, ‘Drain You’ was equally catchy with grunge-infused guitars and strangely romantic lyrics. “You’re my vitamins,” Cobain sings, “I like you.”
While ‘Drain You’ might have been just as worthy of praise and a place in their setlist, it didn’t make the same splash that ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ did when it was released. Perhaps if it had – Cobain suggested – he wouldn’t have liked it as much. This seems to suggest that the frontman’s embarrassment surrounding ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ wasn’t surrounding the quality of the song, but instead the reaction it spawned.
It’s understandable that Cobain and his bandmates grew to resent the success of ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’. It’s frustrating to have one single that provokes a wave of enthusiasm from your audiences unlike any other song in your setlist, a single that overshadows the rest of your efforts with levels of success that are impossible to top.
30 years on, ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ still remains Nirvana’s signature hit, but it is also just one example of the quality of their catalogue. Almost any song from Nevermind, or from their discography as a whole, could have taken off in the same way. Their seven-year existence was littered with compositions just as catchy, just as cool, just as worthy of the legacy afforded to ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’, and equally just as susceptible to dislike from the band as a result.
Despite the embarrassment Cobain may have felt playing the song live, ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ was merely a condensed version of the praise their entire catalogue was worthy of.
