“Like the Ramones”: Kim Thayil on the band with the best dumb songs in the world
In Stuart Braithwaite’s book, Spaceships Over Glasgow, he writes fondly about his first time going to Reading Festival and what it was like seeing Nirvana for the first time. Braithwaite, amongst many other music lovers at the time, was a bit of an outsider, so when Kurt Cobain and Co rose to fame, it was refreshing for him to see. Borderline reassuring.
“When it became popular, we felt like we’d died and gone to heaven. Especially at that young age, it was inspiring to see that music infiltrating the mainstream rather than becoming the mainstream,” he said, “I saw Nirvana play the Reading Festival and had absolutely no idea of the celebrity that was about to take them. They were just this little band, but they really played amazingly that day. Looking back at that gig, it kind of made them. There was this weird anarchy that was gaining momentum.”
Some call it anarchy. There was undoubtedly a sense of rebellion in Nirvana. They were always happy to talk about political and societal issues, both on stage and off stage. They were also romantic rebels, dressed in cardigans and not worrying about what the world around them thought. However, anarchy is only some people’s description.
Kim Thayil and Kurt Cobain were interviewed together at one point, where they spoke about touring and what they thought of each other’s music. Thayil didn’t hesitate to express his adoration for the band. He admitted he was a huge fan, but he also framed Nirvana in a light that a lot of people would likely disagree with.
“I’ve seen them every night,” he said, “Our bus leaves at midnight usually, so it’s perfect. It’s so great! Nirvana do the best dumb songs in the world! They’re dumb in a good way, like The Ramones.”
Many people wouldn’t say that Nirvana’s music was dumb; quite the opposite. Their songs were well thought out and put together, and they often contained deep political and societal meanings. For instance, the song ‘Rape Me’ had a title that turned a lot of heads and made a lot of people angry, but Kurt Cobain had his reasons for calling it that.
The song was anti-rape, as Cobain explained when discussing the meaning of the song. “It’s like she’s saying, ‘Rape me, go ahead, rape me, beat me. You’ll never kill me. I’ll survive this and I’m gunna fucking you one of these days and you won’t even know it.”
When you read these comments, calling Nirvana’s music “dumb” doesn’t seem fair. Everything was well thought out, and there was a lot of meaning behind what they wrote. Cobain was happy to be antagonistic with how he approached subjects, while also talking about themes that a lot of other musicians would be worried about bringing up.
That being said, Thayil has a point regarding some of Nirvana’s other songs. While the rebellion might be there musically in nearly everything they did, some of the lyrics of their other tracks are completely nonsensical. A good example is ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’, which was apparently named after some graffiti by Bikini Kill’s Kathleen Hanna, who wrote, “Kurt smells like Teen Spirit” on his bedroom wall.
Dave Grohl can affirm that the lyrics to the song also don’t mean a great deal. “Just seeing Kurt write the lyrics to a song five minutes before he first sings them, you just kind of find it a little bit hard to believe that the song has a lot to say about something,” said Grohl, “You need syllables to fill up this space, or you need something that rhymes.”
