The true story behind the lyrics to Smells Like Teen Spirit

Simmachine wrote:

ATTENTION PEOPLE WHO BELIEVE TRUMPELSTILT'S STORY IS REAL. YOU MUST READ THIS.
Trumpelstilt. Ignore my comment above. I just went back and read the second page of this thread. Now I can see you are not telling the truth. This story is not real.
On the second page of thread, where u give your breakdown of what "your" lyrics in SLTS mean, you give the words as:
She's over-bored
And self-assured
I know I know
A dirty word
(which are the ACTUAL words of the song.)
And YET, on your fourth post on first page of this thread, you give those words as:
A bit of truth. Bring your friends. It's fun to lose, and to pretend. She's overboard. And self-assured, I know, enough's a dirty word.
Note the differences: "She's OVERBOARD" rather than "she's over-bored" and "I know, ENOUGH'S a dirty word" rather than "I know, I know a dirty word."
When I first read you writing the words incorrectly in that fourth post, I assumed you were going to say that Cobain had changed your original words (from "overboard" to "over-bored" etc.)
But now I see that you claimed on the second page that YOU wrote the words in this verse exactly as they appear in the song.
So what's the story? Did you somehow get these lyrics wrong on that fourth post? Lyrics which YOU YOURSELF wrote, and lyrics which have become world famous? You somehow mistyped these lyrics? Whats the story with that Trumpelstilt?
My feeling is this is all a VERY elaborate troll/hoax.

it was over twenty years ago that I wrote it, and as I mentioned earlier, I MYSELF wrote and rewrote it a couple of times. I noticed the oversight that you mentioned a long time ago, but unfortunately this site did not permit the editing of posts once they have been posted. I definitely recall writing the line originally as 'I know, ENOUGH's a dirty word', but I am not sure if it was me who changed on
the second or third rewrite, or if it was Cobain. I think
it was me who changed it, because I recall thinking the line
was a bit too 'clever' or clunky than I liked. I wanted to keep the song as simple and easy to understand as possible.

Crun wrote:

Well I believe you man. I read all of your original posts and about the first 300 comments after. I noticed that this forum started in 2007 and there is a new post from you last month in Oct 2009. Anyone who is willing to stick their neck out and stick with it for this long is either insane or telling the truth. BTW you talked about a source that knew Kurt, you may have told this in post 301-657 but i didnt read those lol. Did the source ever get you any knew revalations?

see kids? There is the difference between a mature and
reasonable reader, someone willing to read before replying,
and some one who just wants to fuck around and play 'rock fan'
for the hell of it.

Crun, the source that you mentioned turned out to be sort of bogus.
It was just someone who emailed me and claimed
to have been close to the circle that Cobain
had been in, and offered to ask around for any
information on where Cobain had been. Shortly
afterward they told me that their 'contacts' said
no way Cobain had been in Alberta at the time.
Which turned out to wrong. There is very good chance
that Cobain was with Buzz Osbourne for his Calgary gig,
as that gig was sandwiched between two Melvins events
that Cobain is known to have been involved with.
The person claiming to be an expert and pretending
to help out eventually turned out to be a rabid Cobain
fan, who after informing me of her 'contacts' verdict,
turned against me and sent me a couple of hostile emails
when I tried to narrow down generally who or what her
source was and what proof she had, to be so certain of things.

I am still trying to get to the bottom of this, btw.
I have contacted one of the bands that toured with the
Melvins, so we will see what might come of that.

Negative Creep wrote:

<quoted text>
Those sort of comments have been done to death on this thread already. Kinda unoriginal.
<quoted text>
That's nice. Real nice. Why would you have such an angry emotional response to words on an internet forum to the extent you'd tell someone to kill themself?
Too many trolls on this thread...

I still stand by the theory that there may be one
troll guy who uses an IP masking software like 'Hide IP'
to post here under multiple identities, because the forum
displays where your IP is located (city and country)
so to look like different people, you would have to have
a way to switch IP addresses under a proxy server.

For example , there have been times that this thread
sat dormant without a response for days or weeks, and
suddenly there is this flurry of angry responses that all
appear within hours or minutes of each other over two days,
all purportedly from different people, yet with all these
exotic IP origins like Buenos Aires, Argentina &Mosta, Malta
& Bogota, Columbia & Porto, Portugal, which is familiar
to anyone using an IP proxy service like Hide Ip, where
they connect you to any available proxy in the world, and
the list of global proxies usually reads a lot like that.

On the other hand , I could be wrong, because I find that
some hostile responses DO seem to come from people who have a limited grasp of English, and hence a very limited reading ability. It is they who often seem unwilling, and likely unable, to finish reading the thread, and the result is quite a few angry rants in broken English from people who only think that they understand what is being said, and only THINK that they understand it well enough to judge it and respond to it.
At a guess, most of the hostile responses come from
children or people with limited grasp of English, or people
who are generally illiterate and brain damaged.

It should have been an obvious basic concept that you'd receive negative comments and the majority disagreeing with you, but what I'm seeing here is a different response to those who agree with you, and another lame-brained vulgar narrow-minded response to those who don't.

Fact is, Kurt Cobain wrote those lyrics. Himself, the people who knew him and the people who liked Nirvana all know this, there's even something called "YOUTUBE" so you can get the live proof that he says so himself.

I respect the fact that you seemed to put alot of thought behind your reasons but to me all those seem invalid.

I ignore most of the hostile responses, in case
you haven't noticed. Again, if someone politely
expresses disbelief or politely challenges
me on something they feel is amiss, I
ALWAYS respond politely, in kind, am
willing to answer any questions, and thoroughly
explain things so long as the discourse remains
civil.
The way you fans insist that anything that Cobain
ever said must be the gospel truth is sad in a way.
Cobain was a hard bitten individual from a fairly
rough background, so all of you who are assuming that he
was some innocent choir boy whose every word was
pure as god's driven snow etc. should wake up and
engage your common sense. Stop being ruled by emotion.

KurdCobain wrote:

Fact is, Kurt Cobain wrote those lyrics. Himself, the people who knew him and the people who liked Nirvana all know this,

Fact is? I agree with the 'Himself' part, because yeah, he did know for a fact whether or not he wrote all of his songs. But he isn't with us anymore to confirm this. But 'the people who knew him' don't know for 100% fact whether he wrote every single lyric of every single song, there might be a few people who knew him personally that knew whether he wrote certain songs if they were with him at the time but to say that in the manner you worded it is a bit of a generalisation. That's like saying every person I know is 100% sure I painted the picture that hangs in my hallway. Yeah, a few of them know that for sure but certainly not all of them. And the ones who didn't actually see me paint it with their own eyes only have my word to go on. And 'the people who liked Nirvana'(me included) certainly have no way whatsoever of confirming that he wrote all of the songs. It's ludicrous to assert that all Nirvana fans know something for a fact that they can't possibly know unless they were there when he composed the lyrics. The songs could have been written by his housekeeper or his next door neighbour for all we know. I'm sure Da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa but I don't 'know' for a fact he did no more than I can assert that his dog didn't paint it.

I really do hope Kurt did write all of his songs (No offence Trumpelstilt, not saying I either absolutely disbelieve or absolutely believe you, just my personal preference), but I must say it would be absolutely hilarious if one day some people close to Kurt came out and said 'Actually, Kurt didn't write SLTS and CAYA, the lyrics were given to him and he used them as his own. We were there when it happened and he swore us to secrecy' or a letter signed by Kurt surfaced saying the same thing. All you haters would have to eat humble pie and find someone else to spout your venom at. Not likely to happen, but if it ever does I'd love to see the look on all your faces, it would be priceless!

Feel free to carry on the juvenile trolling though, half of you haters were probably not even conceived before Kurt died going by the level of insults posted in this thread.

Sorry. I could't read 30+ pages. Can I ask why your song was named Smells Like Teen Spirit?

Jameson wrote:

Sorry. I could't read 30+ pages. Can I ask why your song was named Smells Like Teen Spirit?

Cobain chose the title himself, and I think
it could be a clue that he was
including with the song, implying that he
didn't write it.
Before you flip out and think I'm reaching here,
think about it for a minute:

What did he name it after? He named it after a scent
that masks the real scent of a person.
'Teen Spirit' was the brand
name of a deodorant (perfume), and a deodorant
perfume scent makes a person
smell different than they truly are naturally.

Deodorant/perfume is actually a fake scent. Teen Spirit
was a fake scent that people used to mask their true
scent.

So the title 'Smells Like Teen Spirit'
meant 'smells like a fake scent'. In other words,
the title that he chose is describing the song as
something fake.
His describing the song as something fake could
be interpreted to mean 'this is not the real me', in the same
way that a deodorant scent is not that of the real person.

Its actually a touch of class on Cobain's part to do
something like that. I think he probably didn't like
having to give it a title as though it was something that
he had written. Something may have bothered him about
doing that, so he came up with a more honest type of title
of it, with the clue embedded in it.

Negative Creep wrote:

<quoted text>
Fact is? I agree with the 'Himself' part, because yeah, he did know for a fact whether or not he wrote all of his songs. But he isn't with us anymore to confirm this. But 'the people who knew him' don't know for 100% fact whether he wrote every single lyric of every single song, there might be a few people who knew him personally that knew whether he wrote certain songs if they were with him at the time but to say that in the manner you worded it is a bit of a generalisation. That's like saying every person I know is 100% sure I painted the picture that hangs in my hallway. Yeah, a few of them know that for sure but certainly not all of them. And the ones who didn't actually see me paint it with their own eyes only have my word to go on. And 'the people who liked Nirvana'(me included) certainly have no way whatsoever of confirming that he wrote all of the songs. It's ludicrous to assert that all Nirvana fans know something for a fact that they can't possibly know unless they were there when he composed the lyrics. The songs could have been written by his housekeeper or his next door neighbour for all we know. I'm sure Da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa but I don't 'know' for a fact he did no more than I can assert that his dog didn't paint it.
I really do hope Kurt did write all of his songs (No offence Trumpelstilt, not saying I either absolutely disbelieve or absolutely believe you, just my personal preference), but I must say it would be absolutely hilarious if one day some people close to Kurt came out and said 'Actually, Kurt didn't write SLTS and CAYA, the lyrics were given to him and he used them as his own. We were there when it happened and he swore us to secrecy' or a letter signed by Kurt surfaced saying the same thing. All you haters would have to eat humble pie and find someone else to spout your venom at. Not likely to happen, but if it ever does I'd love to see the look on all your faces, it would be priceless!
Feel free to carry on the juvenile trolling though, half of you haters were probably not even conceived before Kurt died going by the level of insults posted in this thread.

you have more patience than I do, NC. Thanks for taking
the time to write such a thorough response. I can understand
people wanting the story book to remain as it is re: Cobain.
It was sort of a Cinderella story, and it seems that
so many want it to end with 'happily ever after', at least
in some way.(we all know how it ended, sadly)
Watch the same people jumping on me now try to accuse YOU
of either hating Cobain or just coming here to show off or
whatever other ludicrous response they can come up with.
Yes, that's it, NC. You are coming here and posting just
to SHOW OFF. You don't really believe that there is a chance
that Cobain did not write the lyrics , and that I am telling the truth. No, you are just coming here to make yourself look like
a big man. Blah blah blah.
I agree with you on how juvenile most of it is.

I must say that I was a little out of line when I issued a death threat to Rumpelstiltskin...(whatever your name is lol). I meant nothing by it and to those people who think I DID I assure you I'm a harmless guy. I just think it's ludicrous to postulate something as ridiculous as this is. No hard feelings, just do us all a favor and stop lying about the whole thing.

the real reason you want me to stop posting
is because the longer this drags out, the
more information I find , the more of the
issues and questions are addressed, and
the more obvious it becomes that I am telling the truth.
The tone of this has gradually gone from people
like you arguing the facts of what happened to
giving up on debate and just saying 'shut up,
I don't like this stuff' because you can't come
up with anything more logical or convincing than
simply an emotional response, as though emotion
trumps all, regardless of facts. Childish.

The word "Smells like Teen Spirit" originated when Cobain's girlfriend's friend wrote "Cobain Smells Like Teen Spirit" on his apartment door.

"I was trying to write the ultimate pop song. I was basically trying to rip off the Pixies. I have to admit it. When I heard the Pixies for the first time, I connected with that band so heavily that I should have been in that band— or at least a Pixies cover band. We used their sense of dynamics, being soft and quiet and then loud and hard."

"Krist Novoselic dismissed at the time as "ridiculous." In response, Cobain made the band play the riff for "an hour and a half."[4] In a 2001 interview, Novoselic recalled that after playing the riff repeatedly, he thought, "'Wait a minute. Why don't we just kind of slow this down a bit?' So I started playing the verse part. And Dave [started] playing a drum beat."[8] As a result, it is the only song on Nevermind to credit all three band members as authors.[9]

Cobain came up with the song's title when his friend Kathleen Hanna, at the time the lead singer of the Riot Grrrl punk band Bikini Kill, spray painted "Kurt Smells Like Teen Spirit" on his wall. Since they had been discussing anarchism, punk rock, and similar topics, Cobain interpreted the slogan as having a revolutionary meaning. What Hanna actually meant, however, was that Cobain smelled like the deodorant Teen Spirit, which his then-girlfriend Tobi Vail wore. Cobain later claimed that he was unaware that it was a brand of deodorant until months after the single was released."

So, tell me now Trumpelstilt. How can we believe such a story when you have absolutely no backup proof? Yeah, you came up with an "amazing" story, probably someone stupid enough will be convinced and go like "Wow...this guy put alot of effort here!" and he believes you just like that.

You're just trying to force your opinions on people, with a desperate miserable sorry excuse of a story. Now, if only your comments didn't sound so rude and forceful, I might be a little bit more constructive, however you're far beyond respect.

yes, we can all copy and paste Wikipedia,
and just about anyone can post anything on
Wikipedia, and again it comes down to essentially

"I am a big Kurt fan. Well,
Kurt said this, so you must be lying, plus, um,
I don't like your meaning of the song, so you must
be, like, evil. You have no proof, so I am going
to construct a whole speculative fantasy about
why you are doing this........and also say how much I hate you for this, blah blah blah"

this is just going to be the same endless, repeating
loop for the next 60 years unless someone comes
forward and confirms at least something more .
Such as Cobain having been in Banff, and who had been with that night. I have someone looking into
the Calgary gig details for me, so hopefully something might come of this.

Krist Novoselic: How I Met Dave Grohl, the Biggest Guy in Rock and Roll
By Krist Novoselic in Krist NovoselicTuesday, Nov. 17 2009 @ 12:52PM
Dave Grohl, right, with his Them Crooked Vultures bandmate: John Paul Jones (left), and Josh Homme. Krist Novoselic is a regular contributor to Reverb.
&#8203;Something dawned on me when I was reading Sunday's New York Times: Dave Grohl is the greatest rock musician in the world today. Don't believe me? The man is dominating November music releases. Here we go: Nirvana's Reading DVD, Foo Fighters' Greatest Hits, and new work with Them Crooked Vultures.

Since we are talking about drummers and this November's rock music releases, I would be remiss not to mention Chad Channing and his work on Nirvana's Bleach re-issue. It's good to see Chad get his due as a drummer. His great work speaks for itself. There was a time between Bleach and Nevermind when Nirvana was drummerless. And the story has been told about how Dave joined Nirvana because the band Scream was stuck in North Hollywood.

I remember going to the airport and picking this dude up. He was easygoing--just like some guy named Paul McCartney told the Times. He brought up his drum set--a yellow TAMA with a 26" kick. The man understood John Bonham (Led Zeppelin) and Dale Crover (the Melvins), and this kick proved it. We wasted no time and rehearsed the next day. I knew Dave was coming, so beforehand I'd found a rehearsal place in Tacoma's north end.

It was a productive session, but the next night Kurt and I just messed around at practice for some reason. We all left together, and I could feel that Dave was a little distressed. That shows his serious work ethic. Don't get me wrong, Nirvana had a good work ethic, but perhaps Dave was feeling a little remorse at that moment for betting it all on these two guys from Washington.

We got into the groove again and played most nights. We already had songs like "In Bloom" and "Polly" from the session we did with Chad. They were well developed and benefited from the recording we did with Butch Vig in Madison, Wisc. There's a heavy version of "Polly" that shows what the band did with the tune with Dave on the drums. But on Nevermind, that's Chad, recorded in Madison, on the crash cymbal.

Kurt loved writing songs. He was always compelled to create, and the new tunes just kept coming. We kicked around this Pixies-like riff, and the tune "Smells Like Teen Spirit" was born. The band started playing shows, too. Along the way we became a tight unit. And playing together was as easy as it was fun.

For me, the years 1990 to 1994 seem like 10 years. So much went on, and of course so much went wrong. But life went on after Nirvana. I love the Foo Fighters. Dave kept that work ethic and focus, and that's why he's the greatest rock musician in the world today.

KurdCobain wrote:

"Krist Novoselic dismissed at the time as "ridiculous." In response, Cobain made the band play the riff for "an hour and a half."[4] In a 2001 interview, Novoselic recalled that after playing the riff repeatedly, he thought, "'Wait a minute. Why don't we just kind of slow this down a bit?' So I started playing the verse part. And Dave [started] playing a drum beat."[8] As a result, it is the only song on Nevermind to credit all three band members as authors.[9]
Cobain came up with the song's title when his friend Kathleen Hanna, at the time the lead singer of the Riot Grrrl punk band Bikini Kill, spray painted "Kurt Smells Like Teen Spirit" on his wall. Since they had been discussing anarchism, punk rock, and similar topics, Cobain interpreted the slogan as having a revolutionary meaning. What Hanna actually meant, however, was that Cobain smelled like the deodorant Teen Spirit, which his then-girlfriend Tobi Vail wore. Cobain later claimed that he was unaware that it was a brand of deodorant until months after the single was released."

I don't believe that the original poster ever claimed to have written the riff or in fact any of the musical arrangement of Smells Like Teen Spirit and he also never claimed to have come up with that title, so your paste job is a moot point really. If you can direct me to a post where he has said that he not just composed the lyrics but the entire song, musical arrangement and title included then I will of course offer an apology as it's been some time since I read this thread from the beginning. I do have quite a good memory though and I'm sure I would have recalled that.

KurdCobain wrote:

You're just trying to force your opinions on people, with a desperate miserable sorry excuse of a story. Now, if only your comments didn't sound so rude and forceful, I might be a little bit more constructive, however you're far beyond respect.

But of course, you aren't trying to force your opinion on others, are you? If people feel that strongly about this thread then why on earth do they continue to read it and respond to it? It must be obvious by now that the original poster isn't going to change his story whatever anyone throws at him, so really it's only your own time you're wasting.

Mr Benn wrote:

<quoted text>
I don't believe that the original poster ever claimed to have written the riff or in fact any of the musical arrangement of Smells Like Teen Spirit and he also never claimed to have come up with that title, so your paste job is a moot point really. If you can direct me to a post where he has said that he not just composed the lyrics but the entire song, musical arrangement and title included then I will of course offer an apology as it's been some time since I read this thread from the beginning. I do have quite a good memory though and I'm sure I would have recalled that.
<quoted text>
But of course, you aren't trying to force your opinion on others, are you? If people feel that strongly about this thread then why on earth do they continue to read it and respond to it? It must be obvious by now that the original poster isn't going to change his story whatever anyone throws at him, so really it's only your own time you're wasting.

I included only some suggestions as to the music for it along
with the lyrics.(written in the margin) The suggestion that I included re: the music for the song was that he copy the 'quiet&slow' to 'fast&loud' back to 'quiet/slow' structure
of 'More than a Feeling' by Boston and use a raunchier version of the main riff from that song.You are right that I have never
claimed to have composed a note-by-note musical score for the
lyrics, so yes, it would have been left to Cobain to learn the More than a Feeling riff, embellish it a bit, figure out the general structure that he wanted for the song, and rehearse the band to have Novoselic and Grohl help create the bass and drum accompaniments. Likely they created the bass lines and drums for it through a process of repetition and process of elimination until they had what Cobain felt was appropriate for the song that he had composed in his head.
So yes, of course they put the lyrics to music, and yes there was a creation process involved in doing that, involving all three of them, but people are mistaken in citing mention of this process as proof of who wrote the lyrics.
Also the claim that the lyrics to the song were jotted down
in five minutes and were just meaningless doesn't wash.
The lyrics were something that resonated with fellow writers and entertainers as authentic. The critics could not touch it. To this day , musicians and entertainers of all stripes relate to it and do cover versions of it, one of the main reasons the song was voted one of the top ten rock songs of all times.
That is no small feat, and countless writers, musicians, garage bands,bar bands like Nirvana, you name it: MILLIONS have strived to create 'a hit'. A song that connected as real and that could
not be ripped apart by the critics that saw through it. Some, in despair, have dispensed with lyrics entirely and done purely instrumental music, knowing how difficult it was to write good lyrical content that millions of people would relate to.
Somehow Cobain went where thousands or millions before have attempted to go, and succeeded where they failed.
Yet you are to believe that Cobain came up with this in five minutes, and further, that it was meaningless to him.
Uh-uh. There was a big piece of the puzzle missing.
Up until now.

'Kurd' also cut and pasted a passage saying 'Cobain later claimed that he was unaware that it (Teen Spirit) was a brand of deodorant until months after the single was released.' as a rebuttal to my
speculation that Cobain may have named the song after an artificial and concealing perfume because that was how he felt about the song itself: ie: the song was something that he was faking or 'putting on', to please others, in the same that one would put on perfumed deodorant to please others with a fake scent
other than one's true scent.
I suspect that this bit of 'Kurt claimed didn't know Teen Spirit was a deodorant' wikipedia trivia may be a lie. The reason that I am suspicious about it is because the wording of the song title
includes the words 'smells like'. If Cobain was selecting a title
for a song that was about allegedly about teenage rebellion or revolution, and used a related phrase scrawled on a wall wouldn't he call it just 'Teen Spirit'? He called it 'Smells like Teen Spirit', which implies that he knew that Teen Spirit was a scent. I know the official story goes that Cobain just
saw 'Kurt smells like Teen Spirit' scrawled on a wall by a female friend, and didn't know that it was about deodorant, & thought it was in reference to the conversation they'd had regarding
teenaged rebellion.
So , in that case, the phrase on the wall would have read, to him at the time, something like 'Kurt smells like Teenaged Rebellion'
or 'Kurt smells like Teenaged Rebelliousness'.
I don't know about you, but if I saw something written on the wall that implied that I smelled, I'd be insulted. If it implied that I smelled of something teenaged, or that I smelled like a rebellious teenager, I'd probably dismiss it as an insult and forget about it.
Why would he not be insulted by it, unless he knew that Teen Spirit
was a deodorant?
The graffiti 'Kurt smells like Teen Spirit' became the 'Smells like Teen Spirit', with only the name 'Kurt' omitted.
again, why would he not have also omitted the 'smells like'
part , unless he knew that Teen Spirit was something that had a smell to it? Also notable is how Teen Spirit is always capitalized in Smells like Teen Spirit , like a product name would be.
Another odd coincidence and possible clue to this , is to be
found on Nirvana's followup album 'In Utero'
"The song "Scentless Apprentice" was written about Perfume: The
Story of a Murderer, a historical horror novel about a perfumer's apprentice born with no body odor of his own but with a highly developed sense of smell, and who attempts to create the "ultimate perfume" by killing virgin women and taking their scent.[47]"
Like most babies smell like butter
His smell smelled like no other
He was born scentless and senseless
He was born a scentless apprentice
Go away, go away, go away!
Every wet nurse refused to feed him
Electrolytes smell like semen
I promise not to sell your perfumed secrets
There are countless formulas for pressing flowers
Go away, go away, go away!
(solo)
I lie in the soil and fertilize mushrooms
Leaking out gas fumes are made into perfume
You can't fire me because I quit!
Throw me in the fire and I won't throw a fit
Go away, go away, go away,go away, go away, go away,.....

Lets not even talk about how many fake claims people have made in the past about writing a song to get attention and money. In this case, I just believe its atrocious that you're trying to attach yourself to his life, his career, and his death. Your claims get more ludicrous the longer this goes on.
I'm not even going to go through the process of pointing out all contradictions and out right errors in your story.
I'm glad that in your mind you did something important. Delusions are great aren't they? I'm an angel, look at my halo!, that dresses like a pink fluffy bunny! Catch me if you can...!

delusions can become fact, of course, if enough people believe it... heh, sorry, I reread 1984 today.