The saddest Nirvana song, according to science
It might seem a little odd to say that there’s a definitive answer to the question of what the saddest Nirvana song is when you consider just how much nihilism and despair there is in large amounts of the grunge band’s discography. There may well have been a handful of songs with a slightly more jubilant tone than the rest, but then choosing between the likes of ‘All Apologies’ and ‘Dumb’ and being forced to decide which is sadder feels like an almost impossible task.
It’s highly likely that the songs were perceived as being sad at the time they were originally released, but hearing the band’s music with the knowledge of how frontman and lyricist Kurt Cobain took his own life at just 27 years old makes it all the more depressing, with many of the songs truly illustrating how despondent and hopeless he was feeling during a period where the group were on the ascent.
Given this, a song that may not have appeared to be filled with sadness at the time may have taken on new meanings after his passing, but there’s always been a detectable sense of anguish in his vocal delivery and the lyrics behind it. Sometimes these words came out in fits of primal rage, and on other occasions they were dispatched in a dejected and sorrowful tone, but the point remains that all of these emotions are ones that can be interpreted as sad in one way or another, and can project the same emotion onto the listener.
However, there’s one song in Nirvana’s catalogue that stands out when it comes to illustrating the agony that Cobain was going through. This is conveyed in both its lyrical content and the general vibe of the compositional elements that make it up.
In 2022, music expert Analiese Micallef Grimaud teamed up with data company Happy Or Not to find a definitive answer to the question of what the saddest Nirvana song is. They concluded that ‘Something in the Way’, the closing track from their 1991 album Nevermind, was by far the saddest song the band ever released.
Using a combination of scientific research, music theory and data from public opinion polls, the team were able to discern what it is that makes a song sad, and declared that ‘Something in the Way’ was not just Nirvana’s saddest song, but one of the saddest of the 1990s. “Results from my research indicate that a slow tempo, minor mode, legato articulation, soft dynamics level, low pitch level, and a dark timbre help convey sadness in music,” Grimaud declared.
“The song is written in minor mode, and has a slow tempo, the softest dynamics level, the smallest average onset frequency value, and low pitch levels in the vocal range, making it the saddest compared to the other songs,” she continued.
While this doesn’t go into further detail about what Cobain is singing about, which covers themes of depression, loneliness and alienation, it’s fair to say that from these elements alone, this song is far sadder than anything else Nirvana ever released, even if there are others that may appear on the surface to cover equally dark topics.
