![\"hidden-tracks-from-90s-grunge-albums-you-definitely-missed\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/hidden-tracks-from-90s-grunge-albums-you-definitely-missed.jpg\")
David Grohl, Curt Cobain and Krist Novoselic in 1992. (Photo by Jeff Kravitz\/FilmMagic)<\/p>\nThere\u2019s no denying that Nirvana\u2019s \u201cSmells Like Teen Spirit\u201d is one of the great rock songs of all time, and it never would have been written if it weren\u2019t for a night of drunken graffitiing.<\/p>\n
The story goes: Kurt Cobain wrote the song after he and his friend Kathleen Hanna (Bikini Kill) got drunk on Canadian Club whisky and, as \u201cangry young feminists\u2026 decided we\u2019d do a little public service,\u201d according to Hanna. The year was 1990, and a \u201cTeen Pregnancy Center\u201d had just opened in town, and, wouldn\u2019t you know it, didn\u2019t have a lick of graffiti on its walls.<\/p>\n
Calling the facility \u201ca front for a right-wing operation telling teenage girls they\u2019d go to hell if they had abortions,\u201d Hanna and Cobain decided to visit the building after hours, and Hanna wrote \u201cFake abortion clinic, everyone\u201d on the walls, while Cobain added, in big red letters: \u201cGod is gay.\u201d<\/p>\n
David Grohl, Curt Cobain and Krist Novoselic in 1992. (Photo by Jeff Kravitz\/FilmMagic)<\/p>\n
They eventually wound up at Cobain\u2019s apartment, where Hanna painted even more graffiti on his walls, including the words, \u201cKurt smells like teen spirit,\u201d which was a deodorant brand. \u201cKurt called me up six months later,\u201d Hanna recalled, \u201cand he said, \u2018Hey, do you remember that night? There\u2019s a thing you wrote on my wall\u2026 It\u2019s actually quite cool, and I want to use it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Notably, when writing \u201cSmells Like Teen Spirit,\u201d<\/a> Cobain said he had been trying to write \u201cthe ultimate pop song,\u201d and noted that The Pixies had been a big influence on him at the time. \u201cI connected with that band so heavily,\u201d he once told Rolling Stone. \u201cWe used their sense of dynamics, being soft and quiet and then loud and hard.\u201d<\/p>\n Nirvana recorded the song with producer Butch Vig, who worked on their 1991 album, Nevermind<\/a>. In fact, \u201cSmells Like Teen Spirit\u201d was one of the last songs written before the band travelled to California to record the album with Vig, and had just sent him a cassette demo of the track one week prior.<\/p>\n \t\t\tPlay video<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t \u201cIt was a boombox recording of a rehearsal,\u201d Butch recalled in an interview with Kerrang!<\/a>. \u201cKurt introduced it by saying, \u2018Hey, Butch, we got some new songs for you, and we also got Dave Grohl \u2013 he\u2019s the best drummer in the world!\u2019 Then they clicked into \u2018Teen Spirit,\u2019 with the scratchy guitar at the start. It was so fucking distorted, I could barely hear anything. But underneath the fuzz, I could hear \u2018Hello, Hello,\u2019 melodies and chord structures. And even though the recording was terrible, I was super excited.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"Play\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/hqdefault.jpg\")
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