After a brief instrumental middle section, the band launches into a last round of choruses.
The arrangement is spare, open, and flavored with Lori Goldston’s cello and Dave Grohl’s especially light-handed flourishes on the drumkit. The chorus is essentially the heart of the song, and sets the mood right from the beginning: “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…” Nirvana’s rendering of “Where Did You Sleep Last Night” is shot through with personal pain and creepy paranoia. I find it significant, and indicative of Kurt Cobain’s serious devotion to the art of songwriting, that Cobain reportedly idolized Lead Belly and in general seems to have been interested in songs that were created before the advent of rock ‘n’ roll. Nirvana’s version of “Where Did You Sleep Last Night” is attributed (writing-wise) in the liner notes to Huddie Ledbetter, better known as the influential 20th century folk musician Lead Belly, though the song (sometimes known as “In the Pines” or “Black Girl”) is reputed to have roots that go a little further back than Lead Belly. I liked his original songs quite a bit, especially “Come as You Are”, “All Apologies”, “Heart Shaped Box”, “In Bloom”, and the more recently released “You Know You’re Right, which has a great, unique vocal. I’d put his screaming up there with Prince, his emotional voice-breaks up there with Hank Williams, and his commanding way with a melody in there with any of the great pop singers. I thought Kurt Cobain was an astonishingly expressive vocalist. It serves to remind me that we never know from where our great artists will come, or when they will leave us. At the bottom it says KURT COBAIN, 1967-1994. It’s a pretty well-known shot: a sort of sad close-up, with Cobain sporting a scruffy beard and looking directly into the camera, a few blonde locks falling over his face. I have a picture of Kurt Cobain on my desk. “Where Did You Sleep Last Night” – Nirvanaįrom MTV Unplugged in New York (Geffen, 1994)
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