Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit"

a one song nation we're off this week but for now we're revisiting one of our favorite early episodes of the pod our episode on smells like teen spirit by nirvana that's right y'all this is one of my favorite episodes from the early era like we were really hitting our stride at this point figuring out what the show was yep listen i'll just say this one thing about our own show is that after we tape it in a year goes by it's fresh to my ears to listen to it again so if you missed it the first time but even if you haven't check it out again it's our one song episode on smells like teen spirit i'm actor writer director and sometimes dj de alloriddle and i'm producer dj and songwriter luxury also known as the guy who says interpolation and this is one song man i'm so excited for this one smells like teen spirit is a mainstay at the top of all those 100 greatest songs of all time lists it's got over a billion streams on spotify and personally for me it represents a crucial moment in the history of pop music we're gonna be getting into all of that including the flannel the grunge and all the mosquitoes albinos and even our libidos this is one song so diola do you remember the first time you heard nirvana smells like teen spirit yeah man i was at the age where like after school i would go home and i would watch him tv to find out like what music i should be buying on cassette and you're a cassette guy i was a cassette guy because you know i like to i live in Atlanta driving community i would drive around i have my cassette deck in my eighty four honda cord i was so proud it had four doors it had four doors i was so happy i didn't have to be that guy with the compact where it's like you have to lift up the seat and let people in the back i was like no you got your own door joe and rashi y'all let y'all sells in you know like i was very proud of that but i remember watching the video uh by a Samuel fire i you know i was like a person who really on was like you know because mtv listed the director on there and i was like wow this video is cool and it was like a bunch of a bunch of really rock dudes in the in the stands and they were like the cheerleaders with the anarchy symbol on their thing and then the song came on and you know like nowadays like everybody gets content on their own time but this is still in a time when you know there was such a thing as like a water cooler moment we didn't have water coolers in school obviously couldn't afford water in my neighborhood but we we would get at lunch and we would talk about stuff i'll never forget the day after that song we all heard it i feel like the same day the next day lunch we were all like because we were all like it's all guys it's an all black you know school environment i always say there were only two non black kids in my school there was Charlie and Josh and there was Jorge Ramos i thought there was a Josh there were three you're right Jorge Ramos and uh Josh oh my gosh Joel Blessinger okay so we had literally one agent kid one Latino kid and one white kid long story short i'm sitting at a table with all my friends all of them black and they were just like yo did you see that band nirvana yesterday and we were all like yo that song goes i we didn't say goes hard because that wasn't expression back then i'm sure we were like yo that's dope you know like we all like that's how it felt different like we nobody came to school talking about you hear that new white snake song no no no that was never a thing for some reason not a lot of motley crew fan and dodage exactly for some reason that song and Kurt's whole thing just connected with people all outside the rock community and the Seattle Pacific Northwest like we all felt it we all felt that song i can't even describe how much that song meant but to me that song still symbolizes how one song yeah can change everything absolutely it's just it's the oppinheimer of songs it's like after smells like team spirit nothing was the same it created a genre and it absolutely ripple effect that it changed yeah Atlanta radio like i remember just a couple of months after that song came out everybody wanted to get into the new alt rock right it was called alternative rock and one of the state which to this day persists 30 years later that's still a format that did not exist before 99 at 99 FM became 99 x you know they were playing each year music then the pop stations what about you man do you remember the first time you heard smell 100% because i mean it's interesting that your story was similar the revelation was instantaneous and actually i have to give props to a friend of mine uh sessley Jacobson so you have to understand just back up a second when i was in high school my senior year i was a DJ at the local college radio station so like i'm literally on a Wednesday night my senior year i'm awake at two in the morning till six playing records and i'm kind of integrated into this college music world for the first time this is like we're all the cool kids and the new records come out you get free copies you get guest list at shows and stuff a friend of mine who i met this connection through through the radio station gave me a cassette tape a mixtape so it's interesting we got a cassette connection but this mixtape had the forthcoming nirvana record on it it also had this band called kias who then went on to become queens of the stage this is like oh wow in my personal lifetime this is a mythic cassette tape epic with so much revelation on it and it also had James addiction oh my god it had the new James addiction all this to say that that's the first time i heard the forthcoming nirvana record and i was like it was an instant like you know it's like pouring candy in your ears it's just like you know adrenaline and sugar high and then when i heard it a few months later on the radio it came screaming out of the speakers in my car and in that moment i was like kind of surprised that it was like on the radio because this was like an indie band in the college radio station world that i lived in it was sub pop it was this sort of cool obscure northwest thing but suddenly overnight as you know it was not an unknown underground band it was on the radio minutes later they were on snl and minutes after that the fried boys were playing it coming out of the that that was the moment that i was like whoa what's happening here this is not meant for these guys i mean were you a grunge kid i mean something tells me you were probably really into grunge in that moment i was grunge that was the personification i mentioned on a previous episode i had the drug locks already you're the white guy i was the like i would i was actually wanted two white guys at my school the white men with dreadlocks yeah me and me and a josh josh was that oh man why is it always josh or drool shout out to josh who lives in Hawaii now we just reconnected after many years great guy but he and i were the two white guys with dry uh-huh we both love James addiction this is why we had the dreads and we were both Jews by the way should be noted and uh yeah so i was a grunge kid i remember i was on some substance and walking around with my shirt off in college and i i was i was crisp cornell from sound garden i remember thinking i'm or at a endurance of counting credit he he had risen he was okay i can't i can't tolerate that i touched the nerve he touched the nerve i am so sorry but for the sake of entertainment we can leave in the show i'm i'm okay with that fair to but i was not a counting crows fan just for the record let's put it out there on on the record can i just say real quick i think it's interesting that you heard nirvana before you saw the video for me yes the two are so integrated the fact that my first exposure to the song was that video was the just the rebellion right in that video i just feel like like nowadays yeah absolutely nowadays there's songs that i love in every now and then i'll be somewhere like a club or a bar and like i'll see i'll be like yo kindrick or mar has a video for that song like these are like majors it never occurs to me to like check out the video but like there was a time you don't say didn't even have any videos from renaissance there's no videos from that record see i didn't even know that yeah and by the way i feel like i feel like music videos like what a wonderful medium they they used to be ground zero for the culture right i mean like the guy who directed smells like teen spirit went on to direct some of the seminal videos of the decade he did no no rain by blind melon okay he did come to my window by Melissa ethrich like he did like a lot of different yeah yeah like he he primarily did metal but he did a lot of videos that sort of defined that decade and now i feel like you know besides tiktok's and things you see online like music videos like they're just not ground zero like they were when this song came out and again just changed everything well and also just like to put a pin on that like the video their video is important now but as you and i both know it's more like the tiktok 10 to 15 second fragment that's important not the full song as a music video experience so that's like a huge we've kind of lost that as an art format in and of itself that's interesting to think about do you all my friend are you ready to get into the one song this week on one song i'm ready let's do this so i'm gonna start with the guitar part but before we get into Kurt Cobain's playing i'm gonna set the scene a little bit for you i just so they're on this label called sub pop which is based out of Seattle and it's mud honey and green river who go on to become pearl jam and and sound garden it's the coolest label at least in my world at that moment in college radio it was the coolest label that existed they even have the singles club where every i was a member of the sub pop singles club every month i'd get a seven inch record with like you know one song by smashing pumpkins and the next was sonic youth on the label sonic youth was not on the label but it's interesting you mentioned them because they become relevant when nirvana signs with geffin oh that's great yeah sonic youth was on geffin and that's perfect segue to the fact that the reason they wanted to sign with geffin was because they already had sonic youth and that was credibility in there yeah yeah and they're like if we can sell 50,000 records like sonic youth we're gonna be in that story yeah they're like oh if we can just sell half of what sonic youth sold and that's a big part of this story because in this moment we're kind of in this area of of time in american culture where there's a big distinction between the mainstream and the underground absolutely and being in the underground you had some pride about like not being mainstream and like listening to different music from what the jucks were listening to and all that kind of stuff yeah so all this is happening in part of why Kurt Cobain is such a fascinating character and person to like not just the music but the person is because we know he had these conflicts about being an outsider but wanting to be accepted. I mean, this is a pretty universal feeling, but it plays out in his art and in his journals that we now have access to. We know that he wanted more. He was an ambitious person and an ambitious songwriter. He wanted not just to write cool indie underground songs 'cause at the end of the day, that's actually kind of easy to like write something cool that not everyone likes. The big challenging thing is to break out of the cool underground scene and to be heard. So he was aiming high. He wanted to write like the Beatles. He wanted to write great, the loved big songs. And that leads us into Smells Like Teen Spirit. It's a direct line because one of the kind of funny stories about the song, and I'm gonna play you the riff in a second is once he played this riff for his bandmates, they all, everybody laughed because it was so big and ambitious. It was so clearly, like it was so clearly a moonshot, a riff and for a minute they were all like, "Are we sure we're doing this? "Is this really our band?" And then it just became inescapably like, this is just too good. We can't not finish the song and put it out in the world. But without any further ado, I'm gonna play you the isolated guitar. Now this riff is in the pantheon of iconic riffs. By the way, there's another episode of the show where we're gonna go take a deeper dive into the concept of a riff. But basically a riff is what you think it is. It's just a usually guitar part that you can kind of sing in your head later on. It's almost like it's own melody. So here is the iconic hurt Cobain guitar from "Smiles Like Teen Spirit." So just I wanna give credit where it's due, butch-fig, seminal figure in all of this. Producer who produced this record went on to form garbage as his own project. - Yes, one of their groups of all time. - He as a sound shaper and also just as a producer part of your job is to get the best performances, massive credit to him for changing the sound of radio overnight with the guitar sound, in my opinion, in this song. There's great documentaries and books out there. I urge you, if you're a fan, to look it up for his telling of that story. - I think butch-fig, he's the George Martin that you can't, you can't, I'm gonna use an Atlanta term from the '90s. You know, there's a lot of low-fi stuff that I love, but I think to take over radio in the '90s, the way Nirvana did, you had to make it chunky. - Yeah. - Chunky is in Atlanta term, chunky. And I feel like, even if you had your settings to what I, even if you had your car EQ to what I always called the gangster setting, which is based all the way up, treble all the way up and mids all the way down, if you played a Nirvana song, that's, that's just out of chunky in your car. - Shout out to Alcast, they were the first ones to ever, I heard you used the word chunky. - That's a great word. I'm gonna start using that. - But you know, but it sounds like what it means, right? It's like the bass, it's like, the drums are like, "Growl, it's got body to it, it's got body to it." - Yeah, man, it's just chunky, and I can't even describe it. - And he's a crucial part of the story, who maybe sometimes gets left out in the world, because the perfect blend of band and producer, another producer who is more of an indie rock mindset, might not have understood the whole thing. - He might have kept his shallow and high-end. - Yeah, yeah. - And that might have pleased, you know, the crowd that like bleached, but it's like, let's get this thing, this is a radio hit, let's get it on the radio. - So some of the songs that are kind of in this pantheon of big chunky, chunky, I should say. - You're learning. - Riff rock, bigness, that were clearly in Kurt's eye line for what he was aiming for. Here are a couple of them. This is Boston's more than a feeling. - More than a feeling? Oh, I can't believe it. (upbeat rock music) - I hear this. - Oh, I would not have gone into it. Here's an incident. (upbeat rock music) (upbeat rock music) - No, no, but this is a rough deal. Where you're like, I can't hear it. (upbeat rock music) - We're not the music musical snitchers. - We are not the snitch please. - But I hear it. - Yeah, you hear that. - Nice. - And another one kind of in the same realm would be this one. It was Blue Oyster Cult and their legendary Riff Monster, aptly named Godzilla. (upbeat rock music) - Whoa. - So, you know what, cool admission. I don't think I've ever done this song. - Okay. - All right. - That's incredible. And by the way, I've never heard that song before. - Yeah. Did he ever name check that song? - I guess not. - It's like one of his influences. - I haven't heard him necessarily name check that. I have heard a lot of speculation. Like other people speculating, well, it sounds a little like this, sounds a little like this. That's kind of why I played it. What I do know to answer your question, he was very vocal because he did very frequently name his influences very publicly. And he shared a lot of love with a lot of the bands that he came up like admiring. - Yeah, no, he was gracious in that way. - The band that Kurt Cobain really had his eye on and he's talked about many times was the Pixies. - Yes. (upbeat rock music) - God, I love music. - Listen to that song. It's called "Jagantic," that is the Pixies. That, I mean, I just had one of those music moments where it's like, I still feel the same way when I heard that song the first time. - Yeah, I love that. - This band is one of my favorite bands, one of Kurt's favorite bands. One thing they pioneered or at least made kind of took as an idea and made kind of into their signature in a way was this quiet loud thing. So there'd always be a quiet section that builds to a loud section. Such a simple concept, but that is, that is the Pixies formula as it were. - I feel like various genres, various artists have played with quiet loud, but I think that the success of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by easily made the quiet loud thing, just a signature of American grunge in the '90s. - 100%. Yeah, I mean, it went from being, again, same idea. It went from being kind of a more, 'cause the Pixies are very well known in indie rock circles, if you will. But they never, they had that song maybe and towards the end of their career, they had one sort of minor MTV hit, "Here Comes Your Man." But they're mostly an indie superstar band, but they were never a big mainstream band, not nearly the way Nirvana ever went. - Did they do "Monkey's Gone To Heaven?" - You know what, "Monkey Gone To Heaven" probably is their bigger one. - I love that song. - That song, I know that one. - And maybe because of "Fight Club," maybe their most well-known song is "Where Is My Mind?" - Of course. - So they didn't escape notice, I'm not trying to say, but they never got to "Nirvana Level." - Never, never, they were, they were that, they were that, I think they should have. - They were almost like how the "Smits" are. Like, they're one of those groups that you only know if you get into the genre. They never had a genre buster. - That's so true, yeah. To this day, I mean, a recent interview with Frank Black from "The Pixies," he's still a little bit bitter that Nirvana got there, and that they did with that same kind of core idea of the quiet, loud thing, yeah. - There's a quote, right? - This quote is pretty delicious, so let's just go verbatim. Okay, so this is from a 2013 interview. Black Francis discussed the band's legacy, asked what his contribution to Rockwell is. Francis replied sarcastically. Being original, influencing Nirvana, so they could rip a song, I'll admit it. If Kurt Cobain fests up to it, get all agree with you. You ripped us off. - That's a 2013. - That's a 2013. - That's a 2013. - That's a 2013. - That's a 2013. - Like musician, ego, and when it gets bruised. - I understand, man. You thought it was your idea, and the world thinks it's Kurt's idea. - Take us out with just a little bit more, 'cause the guitar riffs in the song are so epic. I always thought that it was cool that after singing two verses, Kurt basically plays a verse on his guitar as his solo. - You're absolutely right. The guitar solo is literally the melody. - Yes. - So let's listen to that. - I'm soon about to find it. (upbeat music) - Yeah, there's a little bit left of my head. (upbeat music) (laughing) - So good. - So good, right? It's funny listening back to that. I'm thinking about how, so weezer, and there's like a funny internet meme that weezer kind of begins right when Nirvana ends. (laughing) And so the meme, and actually River's Goma's participated in this, is that River's is actually Kurt Cobain. - Oh, I believe it. - He just like changes glasses. He just added glasses, I mean, Clark Kent style, and continues, it's a bit of a dark meme, but it's a funny one. But I'm thinking about it, listen to that solo because there's an entire record, the Green album, where weezers every song does that same idea. Every guitar solo on the Green album is just the melody from the song, which I must have in the conscious choice, just for one record to try it out. 'Cause you don't have to think of anything new. You just play the melody again. It's your guitar solo. I mentioned this a minute ago, but you can't imagine the world existing without this song, being the way it is. And Nirvana is their iconic signature song. But when Kurt first brought that riff, and he had a melody for the chorus, which we just heard in the guitar solo, that melody plus the riff, when he brought it to the band, they were like, dude, this is ridiculous. Like Kurt, bass player Kurt Novicella literally said, "This is ridiculous." So they were jamming on it, they jammed on it. Kurt was like, "Let's just try it out. Let's just try it out." This is a very frequent thing that happens in the rehearsal space. Like, let's just work on it, see where it goes. So they go in, the band starts rehearsing, and just the chorus of playing it over and over again, and to make their own rehearsal, which is going 20, 30 minutes of the same song, to kind of make it more interesting than decide what happens if we slow it. down, kind of make it a little more heavy. Maybe they're taking some like inspiration from that Godzilla riff. Sounds a little bit. And Chris Novicellege comes up with this bass line. (upbeat music) And it should be noted that in the song, Chris Novicellege, his part is, it's very simple. As a bass player. - I love it. - It's so simple, you've got to get in the groove and you're like this is not one of those songs trying to get fancy and do things that are super interesting that'll make other bass players jealous. I'm gonna stick with the groove. I'm gonna play these four notes. - I think that this is just one of those iconic bass lines, just like excursions, which opens up a Tribe Called Quests is low in theory album. I feel like that bass line just opens it up. And I feel like hip hop at this time is also really bass-driven. If you look at DJ Mugs and the stuff that he does with Cypress Hill, House of Pay and all that stuff. And just bass lines in general were like just blown up in this period. I truly love this bass line. And I feel like Chris is one of the, it's kind of the forgotten member of Nirvana. Like if you, you know, nobody forgets Kurt. Obviously Davis had an amazing career post. - It's made it hard to forget him. - No, he's ubiquitous. - But by the way, I really like some food fighter stuff. I really like some Queen of the Stone Age stuff as well. After the break, we'll be getting deeper into Smells like Teen Spirit. And we'll also let you know who Kurt Cobain said, was the world's greatest on live TV. We'll be right back. - You gotta come back for that one. - All right, welcome back to One Song. Luxury. One interesting thing about Smells like Teen Spirit is it belongs in that pantheon of songs where the title is never sang. Like it's, the title's not in the lyrics. Explain how it came to be called. Smells like Teen Spirit. - It's so funny you say that 'cause as I'm thinking about it, like half the shows we've taped are in that same category. We did Blue Monday. - We did how soon is now. - And how soon is now. - Smells like Teen Spirit. So if you hadn't noticed because when we were preparing for the show, I had not noticed, to be honest, that's who's not in the song. - Yeah. - It's a funny phenomenon. So the story goes, at the time Kurt Cobain was dating the drummer for Bikini Kill, Toby Vale. Bikini Kill being a seminal, I think, Olympia Washington punk band, a feminist punk band founded by and headed by Kathleen Hannah, one of my all-time icons, who's now in Lategra. And Kathleen one night, they were all hanging out at Kurt's apartment, which was, sounds pretty ramshackle, but mattress on the floor kind of situation. And so Toby Vale, the drummer for Bikini Kill, was wearing a deodorant that was actually called Teen Spirit. - Yeah. - So Kathleen Hannah, spray paint, takes a spray paint bottle. - Bottle, what do you call it? Shakey shakey thing, can, thank you so much. Kathleen Hannah takes a spray paint can, and spray paints on the wall of Kurt's apartment. Kurt smells like Teen Spirit, which is like. - I heard this story, yeah. - Kind of a compliment, kind of, I'm not sure what to make of it, kind of kind of. - Sounds like a dis to me. - Kind of a weird burn, kind of. - Is somebody, if our producer sprays on the wall, Diallo smells like old spice, I'm not gonna be like, hey, we're gonna have to go to HR. - It's also kind of sweet though. You smell like your girlfriends, like, niceness. - That is just true, that's true. - I guess we're lucky, they didn't smell like, you know, Kurt smells like, like, secret, 'cause then they would have thought that there was like a scandal involved. - There's a lot going on, you know, you're right. Well, smells like Teen Spirit, just stuck out to Kurt. - Kurt smells like Jean de Tay would have been really hilarious. - Me way good. - Cody Musk, yeah, you don't want that. The cheap cologne from Five Dimes store. - It's a car noir. - It's a car noir, I kind of like that one at the time, but it's now many years later. - It smells like for car noir, it's not a hit. - It's not a hit. - It's not a hit, it does not work in the mix. We were just listening to the demo, we'll play some of that in a minute, and it's fun to listen to it as one is reminded that these lyrics are never sung. But I wonder if, because in the demo, they're kind of like rearranging all these mulatto albino, like, here we are now entertainers. - Well, we're gonna talk about that lyric in a second, but go ahead. - We're gonna talk about that in a second. But the lyrics themselves are more kind of sonic. When you listen to the song, you're like half the time as we're now famously parodyed. Later, you're not 100% what he's saying. It's not the kind of lyric where the meaning sinks in, and you're like, "This is a song about X." So I just wonder if they got to the end. They're like, "What should we call this song, guys?" And it just was fresh in the top of his mind that she had just spray painted it on his wall. Maybe there was just like, "Hey, as a joke, we can call it." What Kathleen just spray painted? Why don't we talk about the drums? - Yes. - Yeah. Dave Grohl's iconic drum fill, and a lot of people, by the way, have been asking me. So as you may know, on TikTok, I do a bunch of videos where I talk about interpolation and influence, and such. So I got a lot of DMs from strangers, which I love, by the way, please keep 'em coming, with requests, like they wanna hear a breakdown of this song or this song or that song. And one of the most probably the most common requests, and I have not had a chance to get to it, so I'm excited to get to it right now on one song, is there's this Pharrell video interviewing Dave Grohl, making the rounds, where Dave Grohl tells Pharrell that one of his big inspirations for the drum break in "Smells Like Teen Spirit" was, as he puts it, some of the famous disco and funk drummers of the '70s. - The Gap Band. - Gap Band. His name's Jackie, name checks cameo, he name checks Tony Thompson from Sheik. So let's listen to it, here's the breakdown. Here's the, as requested on TikTok, if you will, here is the breakdown, starting with Dave Grohl's incredibly iconic drum intro. (upbeat music) Okay, so here is what he is talking about, in particular, he's referring to that, the bum, the bum, the bum. That simple idea, which is something that iconically shows up in many, many, many '70s funk songs, not the least of which are the ones I'm about to play you. - Do you say you're gonna play me some Greenwood, Archer, and Pine? - I'm just gonna wait for you, starting with the Gap Band, which I only thanks to this show, and Diallo, teaching me live with the camera running, is. - The Gap is actually an acronym for the streets in their neighborhood, yeah. - I love that. Here is one of two songs that the Gap Band have, a very similar fill. (mellow music) - I like that one, I like that one. - And they like that fill so much, my friend. - Yes. - But they used it in this song as well. (upbeat music) - Wait, let's give it up to the Gap Band, because they're like, "We will not start our songs with music. "We will start our songs with roosters. "We will start our songs with motorcycles." I think drop the bomb on me starts off with some bomb sounds. They're like, "Look, y'all, music ain't gonna do it on its own." So we got to start off with some other sound effects. We got to lure the listener in, thinking they're watching a movie. - Yeah. - It's also funny about that fill, is that like when I was a young drummer, just starting out like in our circle of musical friends, we would refer to these fills as being kind of like, they're funny cool, because it's a simple, it's every time, it's not every time it turns out, it's just these two Gap Band songs for that band. But the Gap Band always, it feels like they always do that fill, and then as a young rock drummer, mainly, we would do them too. So when Dave says this, it's like, "Oh, I feel another connection to Dave, "as he's a much better, bigger drummer than me." But it's like, I totally get it. I'm like, yeah, but it feels good in a rock song. - All I could say is that there was a sound effects company that was like, "Look, guys." - Well, you know what I'm about to happen. - And then the Gap Band wrote up their lines. - I don't know where we're gonna get our business. Our business model doesn't work, unless the Gap Band comes in here 12 times a year. (laughing) Name a song that used this as the sample. Sample Source and Dave Girl Inspiration. - Okay. - In one eight seconds. - On the fly, y'all. (bell ringing) - I should know that. You gotta hit the sample. Another sample. - Shit, goddamn! Get off, do I have some jam! - The sample was that. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. - What is that? - You've heard it a million times. A better hit is Chuck D. - Bring the noise. - Exactly right. - It's bring the noise. Yeah, I knew I knew that sample from somewhere. That's a great one. - I'm just playing. - Too black, too strong. - Yo Chuck, you started trippin' 'cause there's no fun on it. Don't know we can do this. We'll be always do this. - Yeah, we have to play the beat. - How low can you go? - That's what I thought. - That's pretty cool. ♪ Once again, back you're the incredible ♪ - I'm animal, the incredible D public enemy number one. - Who said freeze and? - I got none. I didn't know what to do. - Like mine's more confession. - You have to act out what the actual lyric is. - I got none. - All right. - And I gotta give props to DJ Envy. - Yes. - We were recently on The Breakfast Club. - The Breakfast Club, yeah, show them. - And he reminded me of one that I'd forgotten, and it's this. (upbeat music) - Kiss me and I'll kiss you back. - That's the one that's underground. Of course this is me, myself and I, De La. And it all stems from something about the music. It always makes me dance. - I can't believe how many different ways that you could go with that drum and the blattin' blattin' as you go. And it's also interesting to me that when, I mean, literally it's name is grunge. The genre's name is grunge, and yet it's influenced by glossy disco. - Right. - You know, disco, the much-maligned, The President Carter of Musical Genres. has actually influenced almost every genre that came after it. So shout out to Disco and all the Disco hits out there. - Yeah, although in fairness, I would give, I would, how about these at least are more funk. I mean, they're right on that line, maybe you can funk it. - Yeah, yeah, it's absolutely. You know what, Disco funk it is. But Disco and funk, you know, they're kind of, you know, shout out to Dez, you know, Disco jazz. (laughs) - That's the way we love being Disco jazz. - Oh, thanks for sharing those drums with us. - It's funny, 'cause I just realized, as we're talking about this, the Ferrell interviewing with Dave Grohl. Ferrell himself starts every song famously with the, bap, bap, bap, bap, bap. Right with it, with it. That four, that thing of a repetition. - Bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump. - Which is signature sounds. - Which is cool, but I also feel like, Ferrell smartly, Ferrell and Chad would throw that into songs so that the DJ knew how to bring in the beat. Like, you know, there's nothing more. We've talked on previous episodes, more money, more problems, that little glissando in. Like that's hard for a DJ to mix in. - Yeah. - You know, I feel like a lot of early hip hop would just give you like a snare, like a pop. And then it would come in on the beat. But Ferrell gives you the, bap, bap, bap, bap, bap. And then it's really easy to bring in the beat. - The last piece of the equation is, of course, Kurt Cobain's isolated vocal. So I'm excited to get into this, because it's going to send chills down the spine of every listener of one song. I'm gonna start with the verse melody, so we can talk about that. And then I'll play you the chorus melody. And of course, we were talking about the quiet, loud dynamic and the pixies earlier. It's really clear when you hear the difference between how he sings these two parts. Starting with the melody in the verse. ♪ Load up all guns ♪ ♪ Bring your friends far to lose ♪ ♪ And to pretend ♪ ♪ She's over one ♪ ♪ And set off a shirt ♪ ♪ And now I know ♪ ♪ A dirty word ♪ ♪ Hello, hello ♪ - So this part of the song is actually relatively singable. At least for me personally. Like I can kinda make that happen, but once we get to the chorus, I'm out. I can't, I can't, my vocal chords are a little too valuable to me. ♪ Oh, hello, hello, hello ♪ ♪ We're the lights out, it's a dangerous ♪ ♪ You will now entertain us ♪ ♪ I feel stupid ♪ ♪ It can take us ♪ ♪ You will now entertain us ♪ ♪ I'm a lot of who, I'm a lot of who ♪ ♪ I'm a scared of ♪ ♪ Not a video ♪ ♪ Yeah ♪ - And of course the most important part. - Hey. - Second most important part is. - Yay. - Yay. I mean like in his voice, you hear just, I mean without overseeing, you hear angst, you hear a teen rebellion, you hear it all, you hear like the kid in the corner who feels like, you know, I could be one of the popular kids, but I'm not going to be or you hear the kid is like, I'd love to be those kids, but I can't be like you. I feel like there's so many different relatable sounds coming out of his voice. It's sort of no matter who you were. I think that is one of the reasons why the Jocs started singing it because he's that part of our id that just, you know, feels rejected. And can I just, I want to talk a little bit about the LFO of the room. It's a black listener to the song. This could have gone way south. - I mean. - He says a word malato, which is highly offensive. And he was actually offensive at the time. Don't let people say, oh, what was 1991? People weren't so snowflake. You know, people weren't crazy about it then. But I think we, because we were already relating to him and his vulnerability, it wasn't like Axel Rose was singing the word ballad. Like, that's where Rose sings the word ballad. You're like. - Yeah, I know who this guy is. But like, when Kurt singing, 'cause it comes across different. And can I just say, from a personal point of view, like, I immediately drew a connection between all four of these things. I was like, wait, a malato, an albino, a mosquito, my libido. I was like, oh my God, these are all things that have his blood. A malato has a white man's blood. He's a white man. It's a mosquito has your blood, 'cause it bits you. An albino has your blood, because despite of what he looks like, he's, you know, one of us. And then a libido, well, that's just blood in a, you know, the body part. - In a teen's awkward positions, you know? - I never, I'd never thought that. - I thought that was a reference to Boner. So all of it, it was just like, it all made sense. Because I felt like, now I've learned recently that, you know, Kurt came up with these lyrics like, very last minute. - Yeah. - So who knows what was going through his head. But some of these words are on the demo. So like, these words had been in his mind before he went into the boot to record it. - And it's one of those unknowable things. Like, it's an outsider. - It's kind of one of the beautiful things, right? - It's like, art and even lyrics can mean different things to me the listener than they're even intended to be by the person who wrote them. - And at the time that Kurt was singing them, he, we will never know for sure. But he may not have himself intended. It was sonically a rhyme. It was just words coming to his head in the moment. And then the meaning was sort of ascribed later. Because that's a very frequent thing that happens in songwriting is. There's one word or one idea. And then the rest is sort of placeholdery. But it starts to weirdly make sense. Because your subconscious is actually doing work for you. I feel like you and I are both artists. And I always speak for myself, but I suspect this is true for you too. There are times when you think that you know the meaning of what you're creating. And then you look back ten years later and you know, I don't know if I was right about what the meaning was even to me back then. Maybe I wasn't honest enough to admit that the meaning was that. So sometimes the meaning can even change for the artist. - I also want to point out like, 'cause you were talking about the like, I really loved what you were saying about sort of how, even the jocks, the popular kids. 'Cause it's a very simplistic viewpoint. You're either an insider, or an internative underground kid, or you're popular. So that was a little simplified at the time, perhaps. But I love what you were saying about how even the jocks and the like popular kids have a part of themselves, which is the insecure needy wanting to be heard, you know, a little sad at home kind of person. - I feel like you know, Kurt had a fascination with the guys who he was growing up with in, you know, in Seattle and in the Pacific Northwest. Because you know, on another song he talks about, he's the one who loves all our pretty songs. He loves what it means. - He loves the thing along. He likes to shoot his gun. - No, it's not what it means. - There's a song on Bleach called Mr. Mustache, which is based on a cartoon. And the cartoon is very anti, their term, not mine, very anti red neck. That's what, you know, you'll read online and stuff. And like, Kurt agreed with the sort of take that like, you know, 'cause in the comic strip like this guy who has a mustache, he's not all called Mr. Mustache, but he's like, my kid better come on. He better like football, and he better not be no f-word and s-word and n-word and it's like all this stuff. And Kurt read that comic and he loved it. And he found ways to keep coming back to like, you know, these are the people that I grew up around. But even though I could easily be one of them, I'm gonna take a more, you know, open-minded approach to it. One of my favorite Kurt Cobain lyrics of all time is everyone is gay. And I think that, you know, he was. - That was pretty brave at the time. - He was freaking brave to sing a lot like that. - At the time it was so brave. And we all were kind of grateful for it. You know, one thing that to connect the dots there, 'cause especially in that moment, the idea of punk rockness was in ethos. You know, part of it is a sound when we think punk rock now, maybe you think the sex pistols are the most, maybe you think blink 182. Like that's what punk rock has come to mean kind of fast rock music. But it really at that time especially was in ethos of like, there was a sensitivity to as much as was possible to being like a good punk rock person at the time would have been kind of trying to be feminist, trying to be like homophobic, trying to be a good person. - Trying to be like, hey, we can all get down with this jam. - Trying not to be racist. There's a lot of like punk against racist like concerts in the late 70s in England. And to connect it back to the vocals for a minute, I was, when we were listening just now, I was hearing the punk rockness in that vocal, 'cause your time at Guns n' Roses, Axel Rose isn't, isn't, he's hitting the notes kind of almost like an opera singer. There's like a technical excellence in other genres in pop music of course. But from punk rock, we get now suddenly in the mainstream, this vocal, which is rough and dirty and imperfect. And he's losing it and he's like screaming his like, nodules into oblivion. That was a new sound certainly on pop radio in 1991. - Absolutely, yeah. And that's from punk rock. - I mean, like even when he sings the last part, a denial. - Yeah. - That's insane. And I feel like, can we hear a little bit of the denial clip from the end of the song? - And this is where his voice gets absolutely obliterated. - Yeah. - You can hear it happening in real time. ♪ I deny you, I deny you, I deny you ♪ ♪ I deny you, I deny you, I deny you ♪ ♪ I deny you ♪ - There's two vocals in there and you can hear. - There's two vocals. - You can hear one just give up. Why is it just like, I'm done. - But I like when we were watching a video with Butch Vig again, the producer of the track and he was saying like, you know, he recorded it and I was able to place his vocals, he kind of hit the notes the same way. So I was kind of able to just place the vocals over it. I mean, like, this is just one of those great voices where even when you take all the music away from it and all but one layer, it still sounds great. Okay, so we've been through the song top to bottom. And of course, it was massive. But what's interesting to me is that not everyone at the time knew it was gonna be massive. I used to record a record label 100 years ago. And, you know, as a young person at the label, like the interns, the assistants, we would pass around demos and get excited about stuff. Apparently, like, the people at Gephan were, you know, they were excited about this act. Obviously, they had signed it. But like, it was the assistants walking around there who were like, no, this thing is gonna be huge. And apparently-- - They had ears on that. - Yeah. Like, one of the guys who worked on the iconic album cover was like, oh, I need to knock this thing out. the park because I think this is going to be our next really big thing so he's walking around with this demo and they're going around and after Kurt decides that he wants this to be like a baby underwater. Like he has to find somebody. The band was talking about a lot of ideas. They actually they brainstormed the most about what is the baby chasing and they talked about everything from like a raw piece of me. They talked about a lot of things before they landed on you know money. Yeah but this this is literally the guy who had to go out and find a person who was good at photographing humans underwater but apparently especially this one guy was known for it and apparently they dropped like a bunch of babies in the water. They were like four or five babies and they dropped in the water. Yep. Okay. And there was one where he was like I got the perfect image and then all we did was we photoshopped out. It's not photoshopped. That baby is actually underwater with its arms like that. They had to photoshop out the bottom of the pool so it looked like there was nothing but water underneath but that's how we got that iconic baby on the album cover and I know that the guy like sued because he was only paid like something like $200 to appear on that cover. He sued for like $250,000 and he lost. Okay. So shout out to I forget the guy's name as a Spencer I want to say. I'm sorry I didn't get that money man but at least you are immortalized. Yes he definitely is immortalized. So I'm gonna flip the script. Okay. Right now which is a phrase that nobody who doesn't vividly remember the 90s even uses anymore but I want to turn the tables if you will and play some songs for you because there are certain songs anytime I think about smells like teen spirit whether it's the artist's own admission or just my theory I feel like they're heavily influenced. Okay. One person who admits I love that song and I wanted to make a song quite like it is Rafael Sadiq of Tony Tony Tony. Okay. And on this on the album House of Music he did his version of Hello, Hello. Can I just say it because everyone's waiting for me to say it. Interpolation. I mean that's that's what that is. It's textbook right? It's textbook. It's fun. Uh anybody knows anybody who listens to the show knows that I'm also a big blur fan. Blur admitted that they only did song too to sort of copy that that quiet low thing that you were talking about earlier with the pixies and with smells like and that song which you've heard but now listen to in the context of blur essentially trying to make a Nirvana song. Here is song too. It's fun right? And then you notice the people who know that song we can't play too much of it. After that loud party goes really quiet. I got my hat checked. I wonder if they were thinking pixies or if they were thinking Nirvana. No he said specifically I wanted to make a grandson because you have to put this in this context. Everybody was like who's going to win America will it be blur away as well as it's kind of one. Yeah. And blur on their follow up album was kind of mad at America and they're like well how does on what's on American radio. This should be hit. And of course it ended up being blur's biggest hit in America. And I'll bet you they were doing it in the room with big smiles on their faces of sarcasm because they knew that this was silly right. They were having fun and just one of those examples of like when you're having fun and just trying to make fun of have fun with however you want to phrase it. A style of music you might accidentally end up with your biggest song. If you were to sit down and write a parody of a Nirvana song or you might write that time you end up writing song too. That might come out of your body in 1994. So here's one more song. This is just a theory. I want you to think about smells like teen spirit. And I want you to listen to this song by the offspring. And then try and unhurt. There are times when I'm singing smells like teen spirit in my head but then eventually I go to the offspring song because they're so freaking similar. It's insane. So I wanted to if I know I don't know the offspring's catalog that well but I sense in my mind they've got at least two other songs that kind of do the same thing. Yes. Is that right? Yes. I wouldn't even surprise me. Keep them separated. That's them too right. That's a little different. But it's the same idea. It's a quiet loud quiet loud quiet thing that they do all the time. But I mean at the end of the day there's so many groups that were influenced by everyone. At this point everyone was influenced by your mind. By the way, can I just say right here what we're talking about Nirvana? I actually do like some whole songs. Yeah. Whole being the group with Courtney. That record is celebrity. So good. I mean like celebrity skin Malibu doll parts. There are so many songs and you can kind of hear like you know whether it's Courtney's whether Courtney influenced Kurt a little bit or Kurt influenced Courtney. You can kind of hear some similarities there. I think that people don't actually ever recognize how much Courtney might have influenced Kurt because she's there from the beginning. People forget the very first time that smells like teen spirit is performed live internationally is on the UK show The Word. And Kurt famously opens his performance by saying I just want to tell the people in this room that Courtney love the lead singer of whole is the best in the world. And literally one year later they were married. So like she's there from the beginning guys. You guys can hate on her. I feel like there's a whole strand of people hate on Yoko. Oh no. But like listen. If I be honest wrong with me. I think Courtney love is the more talented Yoko on us. We do not hate on the strong women on this show. I'm a big Yoko fan. I'm a big Courtney fan. We love you. We love Kathleen Hannah. It's not generally put in this game. We're big fans of these like awesome music women. Yeah. So at the top of this episode we talked about how this was the song and Nirvana became the band. Everything was very different. Yes. After this song. Nothing was the same. And that includes the culture like grunge was not just a musical phenomenon. Don't forget there was like Mark Jacobs fashion lines. New York terms. Are that fancy flannel? I couldn't afford it. Fancy flannel. New York. There was movie singles. Remember that movie singles came out an entire movie about grunge in Seattle. That was like kind of glorifying the music. The fashion that the and actually I was about to say the speak. But that there's a funny story attached to grunge speak like the language of grunge. Okay. Which is a non-existent phenomenon. Which was willed into existence by the at the time outgoing secretary at sub pop that record label. Yeah. Got a call from the New York Times during grunge media. Like everyone's blowing up on the charts. New York Times is like. Oh my god. I think I know the story. Go ahead and do an article about grunge. Let's call like let's call ground zero of grunge. Which is a pop HQ. Yeah. And Megan Jasper is her name and Megan Jasper answers the phone. She's actually leaving. She's fired and she hasn't left yet. And she picks up the phone and gets this call from this reporter saying call from the New York Times blah blah blah blah. So they talk and towards the end. They're like, by the way, almost as a side note. We're curious about the language. Are there special words? Does this subculture have its own lingo? A little lingo. And Megan Jasper, she is in a mood. Yeah. And she's like she starts off kind of like kind of like nothing fancy. She's like making stuff up just to have fun. So she comes up with a few ideas. I'm going to look at my list right now. The first one she's making this up on the spot. I think that's what's funny about it. Like she's these words do not exist. The answer is no. There is no grunge. Except when Megan Jasper answers the phone and changes the game by saying lame stain she explains is an uncool person. Okay, we're off to a kind of slow start here kind of basics. Rock on is a happy goodbye plausible. I believe that one. But then she continues. And the next one swinging on the flippity flop is what grunge people say for hanging out. We're going to go swing on the flippity flop. And then she ends it with a loser in grunge speak is a Cobb nobler. I think she was a she should have become a comedy writer. She was brilliant. You know what she became head of the spot. It reminds me of Dave Chappelle saying he makes up slang when he talks to his agent. So he'll be like, okay, well zip it up and zip it out. And of course they just like, yeah, zip it. He did out of you Dave. You know, Diallo has been fun swing on the flippity flop today. My favorite Cobb nobler. Well, I thank you, lame stain. Well, as sad as I am to do so, it is time to end this. Yeah, well, tell me in this thing. All right, let's do it. Well, I am producer DJ and songwriter luxury. And I am actor, writer, director, and sometimes DJ Diallo riddle. This is one song. We will see you next time. We Diallo. We Diallo. We Diallo. And with this guy, we ain't luxury robber.