‘School’: The Nirvana song Kurt Cobain used to take down the grunge scene
Grunge was an essential movement for American rock during the late 1980s. Hair metal and commercial rock had been dominating the airwaves for some time, and the rebellious spirit of true rock and roll was becoming increasingly diluted. So, when groups like Mudhoney and Nirvana began embracing the DIY ethos and punk spirit of this newfound movement, it provided a sense of hope for many young rock fans. However, its message became somewhat diffuse once the mainstream caught wind of this underground movement.
Growing up in Washington, Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain was perfectly placed to witness the rise of grunge music and culture. Before too long, the songwriter took the inspiration of groups like Mudhoney or Melvins along with his sense of isolation and channelled all of that into his own band, Nirvana. Pretty quickly, Cobain’s group became one of the finest exports of Washington’s grunge scene, gaining widespread acclaim and popularity on a national scale while many other bands were still resigned to being local heroes.
Cobain’s childhood was essential in fostering the anger and isolation inherent in his songwriting. During his high school years, Cobain was a self-confessed outcast, once telling Guitar World, “I was so antisocial that I was almost insane. I felt so different and so crazy that people just left me alone.” This adolescent alienation made the musician a natural disciple of the grunge scene, a movement fostered by and for those who felt ostracised by mainstream society.
Inevitably, though, the grunge scene itself soon became isolating and cliquey as it grew larger. As the Seattle scene gained more widespread attention, people began to dominate the movement without any regard for its original message or intentions. Cobain’s safe space within grunge soon became just as isolating as high school. So, in response to this bastardisation of grunge, the songwriter penned one of his defining anthems, ‘School’.
Comparing the rivalries and cliques of the grunge scene with the social hierarchy of high school, Cobain called out the hypocrisy and hijacking of the movement. “You’re in high school again,” he sings, directly addressing the various groups who had fostered such a toxic atmosphere within the previously all-welcoming scene. Released on Nirvana’s 1989 debut Bleach, the song is a highlight of their early discography. Ironically, though, the success of the track soon brought the band a lot of unwanted attention.
Cobain’s songwriting was meant to speak to isolated and ostracised young people as he had been prior to forming Nirvana. Increasingly, though, the success of albums like Bleach meant that people were coming to the band’s gigs while ignorant of their inherent message. By the end of Nirvana’s 1989 tour of Europe, Sub Pop’s Bruce Pavitt remarked that the frontman would “look out in the audience, and all he could see were the kind of people who used to beat him up at school.” On that tour, ‘School’ often formed the band’s opening track.
Of course, this issue only got worse when Nirvana signed with DGC Records to release Nevermind. That album found an unparalleled level of commercial success across the world, leading to further feelings of disenfranchisement for Cobain and the gang. Grunge was no longer a place for society’s misfits and outcasts to express themselves; it was a place for jocks to exert their masculine energy.
Kurt Cobain could not identify with the people that were coming to Nirvana shows, which is a predominant reason why he tried increasingly to distance himself and the band from the grunge label. The existence of songs like ‘School’, however, show that Cobain was clearly having these thoughts about grunge long before Nirvana reached the peak of their mainstream popularity.
