News The Nirvana song Kurt Cobain thought could never be replicated: It was so fast and raw and perfect”
Most people tend to think that 99% of why Nirvana succeeded came down to Kurt Cobain, but that’s not really the case. Sure, he may have had the songwriting skills that most other artists would die for, but he was just as likely to sink like a stone had he not had the fantastic basslines of Krist Novoselic behind him or the pummelling groove of Dave Grohl anchoring everything down. While the band had a drummer problem before Grohl came into the fold, Cobain thought one of their greatest recordings came from before they got the future Foo Fighter in the group on ‘Sliver’.
It’s not like Cobain was a stickler for things sounding nice and tidy. This was the same guy who thought that the mixes of Nevermind were far too slick to be listened to, so it’s not like he didn’t appreciate a little bit of greasy production every now and then. Then again, he did know enough to know when the songs in his head weren’t sounding right with Chad Channing.
Drumming on most of the album Bleach, Channing was a decent drummer for the time but never quite clicked with what Cobain wanted. Channing had always approached the track as a timekeeper, and since he wanted to have a hand in the band’s songwriting, that was quickly brought to a close when Cobain swiftly fired him.
At the same time, it’s probably not the best idea to let your drummer go right before you’re about to go into the studio. Instead of waiting until the right time, Cobain had given Channing the business right before they were about to record their next single, ‘Sliver’. Going into the studio with Dan Peters from Mudhoney, they didn’t even use their own instruments on the track, going the extremely cheap route of borrowing the band Tad’s equipment while they had dinner midway through their session.
For Cobain, this was one of the best feelings that they ever captured in the studio, telling biographer Michael Azerrad, “It has a massive naïveté to it. It was done so fast and raw and perfect that I don’t think we could capture that again if we decided to rerecord it. It’s just one of those recordings that happened, and you can’t try to reproduce it.”
Considering the circumstances, the song definitely has that spontaneity to it. Since the band didn’t know how much time they were going to have to record everything, it feels like Cobain is channelling all that nervous energy into the lyrics as he cries about being taken over his grandmother’s house and wanting to be left alone.
While Cobain had some reservations about Nevermind, this piece is the bridge that got them to make that sound. As much as he claimed to hate the recording of songs like ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’, ‘Sliver’ could have easily replaced a track like ‘Stay Away’ or ‘Lounge Act’ on the album, and no one would have batted an eye.
The song never did find a home on a proper album outside of the B-sides compilation Incesticide, but it’s still a welcome change of pace from what they had already been doing. Bleach may have shown Nirvana’s potential as a decent Seattle-based rock band, but ‘Sliver’ was when Cobain took all of the lessons that he learned writing ‘About a Girl’ and turned them into the most pop-flavoured version of rock and roll.
