Awww, Aren't Newlyweds So Cute?

734. NIRVANA, "Heart-Shaped Box"
Produced by Steve Albini; written by Kurt Cobain
Geffen 21849 1993 Did not make pop charts

735. NIRVANA, " All Apologies"
Produced by Steve Albini; written by Kurt Cobain
Geffen MVCG-13011 1994 Billboard: # 45
There they are: the Scott and Zelda of indie rock. God, they're both so pretty that you want it all to work out. It didn't, of course, but I at least wanted it to.

Both these singles are tracks off In Utero, my favorite Nirvana album, the one that proved you could be difficult and still write catchy songs. Both these songs are about Cobain and Love's marriage, although the first one refers to it so obscurely that many people never realized it. Personally, I think "Wait/Wait/I got a new complaint/Forever in debt to your priceless advice" should have been a tipoff to some kind of domestic squabble, but admittedly "I want to eat your cancer when it turns black" is such a great line that it could tend to draw your attention away from the submerged subject at hand. Charles Cross, however, confirmed in Heavier than Heaven, his superb biography of Cobain, that even the title of the song referred to a present that had passed between the couple and was usually kept at their bedside.

By contrast, the subject matter of "All Apologies" is unmistakable. You can't get much clearer than "I'm married/Buried." Yet Cobain widens his scope to include critics of all varieties, not just his resented spouse. Yes, he sounds at points like a selfish junkie who feels besieged, but I think he's still self-aware enough at this point to know how whiny he may come off. Sometimes he can be hysterically funny in this exaggerated pose, What more can I say?/Everyone is gay being a classic case in point.

For those who think Courtney Love doesn't know the meaning of restraint, I'd like to point out that to my knowledge she never replied to this song, which I certainly would have if my spouse had written it. And as time proved out, one major difference between the Fitzgeralds and the Cobains is that in the latter relationship, it was the woman who was the (moderately) sane one. Personally, of course, I wouldn't have wanted to be married to any of them--Scott, Zelda, Kurt, or Courtney.