There is a lot to unpack here, but part of what I do is sift through everything and then aim to take it down one narrow road.
Nirvana ‘Unplugged’ debuted on MTV 30 years ago today, just about a month after it was recorded.
Today’s feature will take a look at Nirvana’s setlist for the ‘Unplugged’ concert with a focus on the two set closing songs. To sum up this show up in one line, Nirvana did it their way. In other words, the plan from the initial invitation to the final note was not to hit the stage and play Nirvana’s greatest hits. In the words of Dave Grohl;
We knew we didn’t want to do an acoustic version of Teen Spirit. That would’ve been horrendously stupid. We felt it would be better if we found other songs.”
Dave Grohl
In comparison to the artists who did ‘Unplugged’ before, he went on to add;
We’d seen the other Unplugged’s and didn’t like many of them, because most bands would treat them like rock shows—play their hits like it was Madison Square Garden, except with acoustic guitars”.
Dave Grohl
To top it all off, based on the sombre tone of the songs they intended to play, Kurt Cobain requested that the set include a chandelier and candles. The look he was going for was to resemble a funeral.
How’s that for a case of foreshadowing?
It was through this commitment that Nirvana’s edition of ‘Unplugged’ became a celebrated performance. To their credit, Nirvana telegraphed this decision. Given the format, the decision to adapt their setlist to songs that were more conducive to an acoustic presentation only made sense. They laid it out for MTV’s ‘Unplugged’ producer Alex Coletti, who was left with the unenviable task of selling this approach to upper management who tended to see everything as only a commercial entity. This is a clip from Coletti’s interview with ‘Guitar World’
I said to MTV, ‘They’re going to bring some guests on. At first everybody’s eyes lit up, like, ‘Who’s it gonna be?’. They wanted to hear ‘right’ names like Eddie Vedder or Tori Amos. When I said, ‘the Meat Puppets’, it was like, ‘Oh great. They’re not doing any hits and they’re inviting guests who don’t have any hits to come play. Perfect.’”
Alex Coletti
Here is Nirvana performing ‘Lake of Fire’ along with Curt and Cris Kirkwood of the Meat Puppets. This is a sensational delivery.
Just thinking of Coletti’s interaction with MTV executives makes me laugh. Clearly, he was in the middle; essentially negotiating on behalf of two groups that were speaking different languages. In retrospect, Nirvana held all the aces in this poker game. They had the audience.
No one could have predicted the set list that included only eight Nirvana songs. Their selection fit seamlessly into the acoustic format. Everything went to another level with the surprises. Immediately following the two opening Nirvana hits that opened the show (‘About a Girl’ and ‘Come as You Are’) the choices took a turn that set the tone for the evening. Here is a cover of The Vaselines ‘Jesus Don’t Want Me for a Sunbeam’.
The mood was cast.
As mentioned above, including the Meat Puppets tracks was a stroke of genius, but the surprises went to even greater heights. Years later, we recall the brilliant and now eternally glorified version of David Bowie’s ‘The Man Who Sold the World’.
As the show moved along, the atmosphere was comfortable. The raucous and chaotic scene that tended to exist during a typical Nirvana concert was replaced with a casual, almost serene backdrop. Exactly what Nirvana set out to accomplish.
Toward the shows’ conclusion, the penultimate song was the ‘In Utero’ single ‘All Apologies’ which summarized their sentiment related to the evening and the way they felt about scene.
In the sun, in the sun, I feel as one”
Kurt Cobain
The interesting thing about ‘All Apologies’ is that it was written by Kurt Cobain back in 1990, before Nirvana took the music world by storm, and long before he became an icon for a generation.
A look back through YouTube led to this discovery of a bootleg version of ‘All Apologies’ from University of Bradford in West Yorkshire, England.
Here is Dave Grohl’s reflection on ‘All Apologies’.
I remember hearing it and thinking, ‘God, this guy has such a beautiful sense of melody, I can’t believe he’s screaming all the time.'”
Dave Grohl
It just goes to show that for Nirvana, everything was situational and their ability to adapt to the moment became their greatest asset.
Never any apologies.
What else should I be?
Dave Grohl
All apologies
What else should I say?
Everyone is gay
What else should I write?
I don’t have the right
What else should I be?
All apologies
In the sun, in the sun, I feel as one
In the sun, in the sun
Married, buried
I wish I was like you
Easily amused
Find my nest of salt
Everything is my fault
I’ll take all the blame
Aqua seafoam shame
Sunburn, freezer burn
Choking on the ashes of her enemy
In the sun, in the sun, I feel as one
In the sun, in the sun
Married, buried
Married, buried
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
All in all is all we are…”
Standing on its own, ‘All Apologies’ would have made for a symbolic closing song, but of course they had another surprise up their sleeve. More on that in a moment.
First, here is the album version from ‘In Utero’. Pay close attention to cello by Kera Schaley. Kera was a friend of producer Steve Albini and as she recalled, including this instrument became a matter of great debate.
Kurt loved the deep sound, like the really deep, groaning sound of the low notes. He was like, ‘just lay on that for a long time.’ And so I just laid on that low note for him. And I got some noise parts in there. I like making noise on the cello, too. And if you listen for some high screeching sounds at the end, that’s me.”
Kera Schaley
Just one more interesting footnote to a song that Kurt Cobain summarized as “peaceful, happy, comfort – just happy happiness.”
This will take you back almost exactly thirty years. Ironically and despite Kurt Cobain’s description, ‘All Apologies’ has the dubious distinction of being the final Nirvana single released before his suicide in April of 1994. It should be noted that for the ‘Unplugged’ performance the cello was played by Lori Goldston.
Keeping with the homage to Nirvana’s legacy, here are surviving members, Pat Smear, Dave Grohl, and Krist Novoselic at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony. They were joined by Joan Jett, St. Vincent (Annie Clark), Kim Gordon and Lorde on vocals. Lorde captures the moment and manages to do it in an almost reluctant and unassuming way, while Novoselic drives the rhythm with his well-placed accordion. A special performance for sure.
Soon after ‘In Utero’ was released Sinead O’Connor added ‘All Apologies’ to the track list of her album ‘Universal Mother’. This was an interesting selection for Sinead. Music as therapy. The subdued delivery is vintage Sinead O’Connor. She is making a statement here.
Heading back to Sony Studios in New York City, the set was coming to an end. Kurt Cobain feigned indifference.
Fuck you all. This is the last song of the evening.”
Kurt Cobain
About as good natured as it gets. This was as close as Kurt Cobain ever got to toasting his audience. They GOT IT, that night. As Nirvana signed off, they treated everyone with the old Lead Belly song ‘Where Did You Sleep Last Night’.
Here is the preamble which leads to this strong set closer.
What is it? This was written by my favorite performer. Our favorite performer, isn’t it? All of ours? We like him the best? Oh and here’s a donation basket to buy Leadbelly’s guitar
Nirvana – On Stage Banter
Oh yeah, this guy representing the Leadbelly estate wants to sell me Leadbelly’s guitar for $500,000
We’re passing a basket around.
Yeah, I even asked David Geffen personally if he’d buy it for me. He wouldn’t do it.”
Here is the Lead Belly version along with the lyrics for you to sing along.
American Traditional
My girl, my girl, don’t lie to me
Tell me where did you sleep last night
In the pines, in the pines where the sun don’t ever shine
I would shiver the whole night through
My girl, my girl, where will you go?
I’m going where the cold wind blows
In the pines, in the pines where the sun don’t ever shine
I would shiver the whole night through
Her husband was a hardworking man
Just about a mile from here
His head was found in a driving wheel
But his body never was found
My girl, my girl, don’t lie to me
Tell me where did you sleep last night
In the pines, in the pines where the sun don’t ever shine
I would shiver the whole night through (Shiver for me)
My girl, my girl, where will you go?
I’m going where the cold wind blows
In the pines, in the pines where the sun don’t ever shine
I would shiver the whole night through
My girl, my girl, don’t lie to me
Tell me where did you sleep last night
In the pines, in the pines where the sun don’t ever shine
I would shiver the whole night through
My girl, my girl, where will you go?
I’m going where the cold wind blows
In the pines, the pines the sun don’t shine
I’d shiver… the whole night through
This song has a history going back over 150 years. It is actually a combination of two songs; ‘In the Pines’ and ‘The Longest Train’. Its authorship is unknown, so it goes down as a traditional American folk song with roots connecting the story to the coal mines of the Southern Appalachian. There will be more on ‘Where Did You Sleep Last Night’ in a future Ted Tocks post. This is a classic.
For Kurt Cobain and Nirvana, this was not their first brush with ‘Where Did You Sleep Last Night’. Cobain and bassist Krist Novoselic worked with Mark Pickerel and Mark Lanegan of the Screaming Trees on a version of the song in 1989. The back story is fascinating. The quartet were in a blues phase and their love of the genre centred on the work of Lead Belly. Within this space they toyed with the idea of creating a supergroup and calling themselves The Jury. This all happened about twenty years after bands like Cream and Led Zeppelin did pretty much the same thing. The group rehearsed in a rented space above the Continental Trailways bus station in Seattle. They referred to this refuge as ‘Nirvana’.
Following the final note Alex Coletti and Nirvana briefly flirted with the idea of an encore. Here is the MTV producer’s intriguing recollection.
I said, “Now’s the time. You’re not gonna get to do this again. And they listened and they weren’t just dismissing it. And I threw out ‘Verse Chorus Verse’, and there was one song that was a B-side that Dave sang, ‘Marigold’. So honestly, I wasn’t doing what MTV wanted, which was getting hits. I was throwing out obscure stuff. Just stuff I thought would work acoustic and be cool. But I wasn’t gonna come out and say, “Try Teen Spirit.” But Kurt thought about it and he said, “I don’t think we can top the last song.” And the minute he said that, I pressed the button on my headset and said, “We’re wrapped.”
Alex Coletti
With that exchange it was all over. Everyone was satisfied.
In the spotlight…they felt as one.
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