The Nirvana song Butch Vig called imperfect: “It’s a little out of tune”
All of Nirvana’s greatest moments could easily be traced back to the genius of Kurt Cobain. Although he never claimed to be one of the greatest ever to pick up a guitar, Cobain’s knack for writing fantastic pop melodies alongside power chords led to him creating a voice for disenfranchised kids looking to rebel against the system at the start of the 1990s. While Nevermind cemented the band’s legacy as one of the best at the time, producer Butch Vig remembered one song wasn’t exactly perfect.
When Vig first signed on to record, he initially worked with the band in Madison, Wisconsin, with their original drummer, Chad Channing. After being dissatisfied with his drumming, Nirvana finally landed on Dave Grohl, who would provide the rock-steady beat behind tracks like ‘In Bloom’ and ‘Come As You Are’.
Once they had more money after signing with Geffen Records, the band reconvened at Sound City Studios to record the rest of the album. Although they had been relatively tight before recording, Vig remembered having to work on some of the arrangements behind some of the songs, including forcing Grohl to use a click track when working on the song ‘Lithium’.
While Vig was ecstatic hearing ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ for the first time, he had a nightmarish job trying to assemble the track for ‘Something in the Way’. Since it was meant to be a delicate composition, Vig thought that it would be best for Cobain to play the song how he heard it in his head, eventually recording Cobain sitting on the couch, hardly whispering the lyrics of the song.
Rather than translate that onto the studio floor, Vig recalled having to work with what Cobain had done on the couch and layering the rest of the band around him. While they were willing to serve the song at every opportunity, Vig remembered how hard it was to get the right take.
Looking back on that one song, Vig recalled that he would put Krist Novoselic and Grohl through their paces during the recording, telling Classic Albums, “I think I tortured them on it. There would be times when we would punch bar-by-bar to make sure it was languid. Even when Dave was playing drums, I could hear Kurt in the control room saying, ‘Quieter’. I think it’s in his nature to hit hard”.
Thinking that the song needed something else, one of the last days of recording saw the band bring in a cellist to add a classical touch to the final track. Although the cello would be the icing on the cake, Vig could still see past the massive mistakes that were left in the final mix when listening back to it.
Compared to the other tracks, Vig would talk about how the track was out of tune, explaining, “[The cellist] had to deal with the same problem that Krist did trying to get the track in tune because it was so hard to play along to Kurt’s funky five-string. So the track is a little bit out of tune, but that adds to the eeriness of it”.
Although Cobain may not have been one to clean up any of the harmonic parts of his sound, the appeal of ‘Something in the Way’ benefits from having that mournful sound, almost as if the track is weeping along with Cobain.
