Smells like Teen Spirit

musicismylife78

What is everyone's interpretation of the last line in the song, repeated many times over. Kurt screams "a denial" over and over again. Extremely powerful. Somehow I think this line has important meaning to Kurt and wasnt just used in the song for the hell of it.

However what do you interpret the meaning of it as being?

elmer

I think of it as being a denial of the truth, youth or something turning sour from the phoney environment that surrounds one

restlesssoul

Drummer Dave Grohl has stated he does not believe the song has any message, and said "Just seeing Kurt write the lyrics to a song five minutes before he first sings them, you just kind of find it a little bit hard to believe that the song has a lot to say about something. You need syllables to fill up this space or you need something that rhymes."[36]

but i believe the first to reply.....

IlovveePJ

Cheguevara6 wrote:

What is everyone's interpretation of the last line in the song, repeated many times over. Kurt screams "a denial" over and over again. Extremely powerful. Somehow I think this line has important meaning to Kurt and wasnt just used in the song for the hell of it.

However what do you interpret the meaning of it as being?

I think it's a representation of Kurt's horrible childhood.

red mos

I think the song is basically about Kurt's Broken home childhood, and then the rise to fame and pressure from the media. Like, how it was hard for him to deal with all of it, especially being famous: Kurt just didn't look it. He couldn't be down to earth, couldn't be himself which is what he really wanted I think, but the media attention and pressure kept that from happening,

soulsinging

red mos wrote:

I think the song is basically about Kurt's Broken home childhood, and then the rise to fame and pressure from the media. Like, how it was hard for him to deal with all of it, especially being famous: Kurt just didn't look it. He couldn't be down to earth, couldn't be himself which is what he really wanted I think, but the media attention and pressure kept that from happening,

only kurt wrote the song before he was famous. it was the song that made him famous.

restlessoul is right. watch the nirvana dvd. kurt himself talks about how his lyrics dont really mean anything, he just strings together lines that sound good and rhyme and lets people interpret them however they want.

tara

soulsinging wrote:

only kurt wrote the song before he was famous. it was the song that made him famous.

depends what circles (not saying that i heard of nirvana b4 that), i always thought that this song was making fun of their fans "he's the one who likes all our pretty songs/and he likes to sing along/but he knows not what they mean" that fans don't listen to the words, they just blindly sing and dance, and that he got a kick out of watching them sing along to this one too. as for the last line, who knows

musicismylife78

thanks for the replies, but I disagree with alot of you. The anger, rage and frustration apparent in the music of Nirvana is I think a reflection of Kurt and his life. You cant tell me that the anger in Smells like Teen Spirit was just a put on, that he was just making up words, as Dave Grohl seems to suggest. That that song meant nothing to him, or at least the words didnt mean anything to him.

He obviously wrote alot of things that meant something to him. Polly was about an actual rape. Rape me was his antirape song. He made several mentions to Frances Farmer who influenced his life grately. Something in the way, was obviously very personal. Sliver had very personal lyrics, with alternate versions of it, suggesting that at his grandparents house, his grandpa would put cigarette butts out on his arms.

Maybe you are all right, and this song was just nonsense lyrics, words that sound good together. But to me, the anger in the song suggests something else. You dont sing, as was the point of the entire thread "A denial" seven or eight times, as loud as you can, for fun. You sing that stuff to get feelings out.

To me the "a denial" part does suggest some dark period of his childhood

musicismylife78

I think also, rightly or wrongly, the song symbolizes an entire generation, the "here we are now entertain us" can be suggested to be about Gen X.

To me the entire song has always been a protest song, not in the Rage Against the Machine way, or The Clash way, but in a very different manner. Kurt doesnt seem angry at one person. He seems pissed of at the entire culture. I think the older people who heard it, 40 or 50 year olds didnt understand it back in 1991. They really dont know what Kurt represented to our generation.

Whether you love or hate nirvana and Kurt, what he symbolized to me, and my generation is very important. He was a hero, a guy who spoke up for outcasts and the disillusioned. Debate all you will about whether his suicide makes him a hero or not, but he in my mind is one of the more important musicians of our generation. Able to encompass the feelings of an entire generation, the anger, the rage, the disillusionment.

I think he was special, and wonder if he was one of a kind, I dont hear or see many people who had the effect he did. Its been 12 years since he killed himself, and we havent had another musician have the effect that Kurt did...its time to see a new hero and leader

pushmepullme

I think he was over rated. And he killed himself because he was put up on this insane pedestal which he couldn't live up to.

catefrances

disillusionment. desperation. wasting time and thinking your life means something. or thinking that it should. or knowing that it doesn't. and living your life to that degree.

soulsinging

Cheguevara6 wrote:

thanks for the replies, but I disagree with alot of you. The anger, rage and frustration apparent in the music of Nirvana is I think a reflection of Kurt and his life. You cant tell me that the anger in Smells like Teen Spirit was just a put on, that he was just making up words, as Dave Grohl seems to suggest. That that song meant nothing to him, or at least the words didnt mean anything to him.

He obviously wrote alot of things that meant something to him. Polly was about an actual rape. Rape me was his antirape song. He made several mentions to Frances Farmer who influenced his life grately. Something in the way, was obviously very personal. Sliver had very personal lyrics, with alternate versions of it, suggesting that at his grandparents house, his grandpa would put cigarette butts out on his arms.

Maybe you are all right, and this song was just nonsense lyrics, words that sound good together. But to me, the anger in the song suggests something else. You dont sing, as was the point of the entire thread "A denial" seven or eight times, as loud as you can, for fun. You sing that stuff to get feelings out.

To me the "a denial" part does suggest some dark period of his childhood

i didnt say the emotion was a put on or that the song meant nothing to him, just that the lyrics of kinda nonsensical in a dr seuss kinda way. it doesnt tell a story the way ed does with songs like nothingman. kurt had a diff style of lyricism. more impressionistic. if you compare it to painting, it's like a portrait (this is a picture of X) vs. modern art (what does it express). i dont think teen spirit was about anything in particular. that does not mean it was meaningless or the emotion was fake, just that you cant extract a specific story from it the way you can say oceans was about beth or alive about ed never knowing his dad.

WhiteMaleRat

the lyrics to this song make no sense at all from start to finish. I've always believed that.