Kickass article on lyricism in Hole vs. Nirvana

Published February 23rd, 2010 View 3 Comments »
Share |

I love this article from Ben Hewitt: ‘Why Courtney Love Was Kurt Cobain’s Lyrical Equal’. I don’t necessarily agree, but he does his research given that we’re in an era where the title Jennifer’s Body gets ripped off for Megan Fox movies.

I’ve always thought ‘Gutless’ has an explosive opening with the chant:

All my friends are embryonic
All my friends are dead and gone
All my friends are microscopic
All my friends wake up alone

Even in their later pop incarnation they came out with jittery openings, cheerfully proclaiming:

Oh make me over! I’m all I wanna be,
A walking study in demonology

Their churning bridges expertly propel lyrics using song arrangement, in e.g. ‘I Think That I Would Die’, ‘Northern Star’, and here in ‘Boys On The Radio’:

If I let you in under my skin, and risen every angel slain
He said he’d never, ever, ever go… Baby, I’ve gone away!

In your endless summer night, I’ll be on the other side
When the water is too deep, I will ease your suffering
When the glitter fades in morning, turn away and you will find my empty eyes.

And there’s real degeneration and gendered desperation in ‘Plump’: “I don’t do dishes—I throw them in the crib.” What’s weird is that if you lay the lyrics to ‘Plump’ and Nirvana’s ‘Drain You’ side-by-side, they’re eerily concordant.

Drain You: “It is now my duty to completely drain you
I travel through a tube, and end up in your infection”
Plump: “Now I’ve stumbled here, failed to make it mine
They say I’m plump, but I throw up all the time”

Drain You: “Chew your meat for you, pass it back and forth
In a passionate kiss, from my mouth to yours
Sloppy lips to lips, you’re my vitamins”
Plump: “I’m eating you: I’m overfed!
Your milk’s in my mouth
It makes me fill up!”

Related posts:

  1. Courtney Love Rocks
             Jennifer’s Body [mp3] [Audio clip: view full post to...
  2. Hole ‘Live Through This’ demos (1993)
            Hole recorded two sets of demos in London in March...
  3. ‘Gutless, You’re Gutless!’
             Gutless (Hole, 1994) mp3 [Audio clip: view full post...
  4. ‘I Let You In Under My Skin’
            “Boys On The Radio”, Hole [youtube] [Audio clip: view full...
  5. Eric Erlandson interview: “I still enjoy playing Violet”
            A couple interviews from early 2010 (found via Love Your...

  • http://TheQuietus Ben Hewitt

    Hey Firas,

    I’m Ben – the author of the original article. Thanks so much for your kind words – and this bit of extra analysis is great!

    Cheers

    Ben

  • http://firasd.org Firas

    Cool Ben! Thanks for stopping by.

    One thing I forgot to mention is that they practice deft inversions of subject/object as in the Boys On The Radio quote above, and remarkably in Violet, where in between yelling “go on take everything”, she snarls: “I told you from the start, just how this would end—when I get what I want, then I never want it again!”

  • Ben Hewitt

    I definitely agree with you; without wishing to sound like a fan boy (and believe me, Nirvana were probably a more formative part of my youth than Hole), it does genuinely shock me that a lot of people aren’t prepare to believe that Courtney, whatever her faults, isn’t a great artist in her own right. And we miss people like Courtney now – people who clearly give a fuck about their art.

    Anyway, as I said before, thanks for your comment and your subsequent blog post.

    x

Related Entries