The Nirvana hit Kurt Cobain couldn’t stand: The story behind the song he hated to play

The song was hailed as the anthem of grunge and it catapulted Nirvana’s popularity. The group wasn’t looking for the fame and fortune that went along with being played over and over again on MTV and every radio channel in the US, but that’s what happened. The song became so popular in the early 90s that Kurt Cobain hated to play it.

“But I can barely, especially on a night like tonight, get through “Teen Spirit.” I literally want to throw my guitar down and walk away. I can’t pretend to have a good time playing it,” he told ‘Rolling Stone’ magazine reporter David Fricke in the interview that was published on Jan. 27, 1994, just two months before Cobain took his own life.

“Smells Like Teen Spirit” is the opening track and lead single from Nirvana’s second album, ‘Nevermind’ (1991), which sold over 13 million units worldwide and is one of the best-selling songs of all time. It was Nirvana’s biggest hit and was number one on the charts in Belgium, France, New Zealand and Spain.

Cobain explained what influenced the song in the interview with Fricke: “‘Teen Spirit’ was such a clichéd riff. It was so close to a Boston riff or “Louie, Louie.” When I came up with the guitar part, Krist looked at me and said, ‘This is so ridiculous.’ I made the band play it for an hour and a half.”

The problem for Cobain was that the song was too popular, too famous and he was tired of it. “But once it got into the mainstream, it was over,” he said. “ I’m just tired of being embarrassed by it. I’m beyond that.”

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The interview in Rolling Stone goes deep into Cobain’s mental health and even discusses thoughts he had about committing suicide. The fame was too much for the leader of Nirvana to handle and, like other great musicians before and after him, the struggle was too hard for him to deal with.

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