{"id":538721,"date":"2026-04-19T02:22:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-19T02:22:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/538721\/"},"modified":"2026-04-19T02:22:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-19T02:22:11","slug":"the-rip-off-song-that-nirvana-nearly-threw-away","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/538721\/","title":{"rendered":"The &#8220;rip-off&#8221; song that Nirvana nearly threw away"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <img width=\"1140\" height=\"855\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Pivotal-Moments-How-Nirvana-formed-Far-Out-Magazine-1140x855.jpg\" class=\"attachment-single-feature size-single-feature wp-post-image\" alt=\"Pivotal Moments - How Nirvana formed - Far Out Magazine\" layout=\"fill\"  style=\"object-position: 50% 20%\" loading=\"eager\" fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" \/><\/p>\n<p>(Credits: Far Out \/ Alamy)<\/p>\n<p> Sat 18 April 2026 20:00, UK <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/faroutmagazine.co.uk\/tags\/dave-grohl\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" title=\"\">Dave Grohl<\/a> probably didn\u2019t realise what he was getting into when he first signed on to be a member of Nirvana. <\/p>\n<p>The Seattle legends were already becoming a hot commodity in the underground scene, but the thought of three random guys in flannel becoming one of the biggest bands in the world was going to be a bit of a stretch in a world that was still dominated by hair metal. But even when they were making Nevermind, Grohl remembered that there were a few songs where they didn\u2019t exactly know what they were working with until the record was finished.<\/p>\n<p>Then again, it\u2019s not like Grohl had that much time to contribute when he first joined. A lot of the songs that ended up on Nevermind had been worked out by the band when Chad Channing was still on drums, and while Grohl was the one giving it his signature power, a song like \u2018In Bloom\u2019 does include drum fills that were Channing\u2019s ideas that Grohl copied note-for-note when he got behind the kit.<\/p>\n<p>But when you listen to the power that he has behind every single strike, it\u2019s not hard to see why Kurt Cobain needed to work with him. He was the band\u2019s resident John Bonham, and even if he was playing one of the gnarliest punk songs ever, tracks like \u2018Stay Away\u2019 and \u2018Territorial Pissings\u2019 are <a href=\"https:\/\/faroutmagazine.co.uk\/kurt-cobain-isolated-vocals-nirvana-territorial-pissing\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" title=\"\">some of the most raucous songs<\/a> that the band ever came up with, thanks to what Grohl was doing.<\/p>\n<p>So you\u2019d think that \u2018Smells Like Teen Spirit\u2019 would have been the frontrunner right out of the gate, right? Well, no. Not at all, actually. Even though the song literally changed the rock and roll scene overnight and birthed an entire generation of disaffected kids, Grohl remembered that the band were considering ditching the song when they first laid it down because they thought it sounded too similar to the Pixies.<\/p>\n<p>It does have all the hallmarks of Black Francis\u2019s musical style, but the thought of them nearly discarding the whole thing is crazy to look back on, with Grohl <a href=\"https:\/\/www.livenirvana.com\/interviews\/9309sb\/index.php\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" title=\"\">recalling<\/a>, \u201cWe almost threw it away because we thought it sounded too much like the Pixies. We thought, \u2018God this is the biggest Pixies rip-off ever.\u2019 But people seemed to latch onto that more than anything else, so I\u2019m convinced that if the Pixies came out now with their first album, people would be calling them the new Nirvana.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The quiet-loud dynamic is definitely something that they borrowed from the underground legends, but the primal scream that Cobain had was something no one else could have replicated. This was a cry from the next generation that they didn\u2019t want to hear corporate rock and roll anymore, and the rest of the world seemed to follow suit from the moment that <a href=\"https:\/\/faroutmagazine.co.uk\/music-video-mtv-played-24-hours-straight\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" title=\"\u20181999\u2019: The music video MTV weirdly played for 24 hours straight\">the video premiered on MTV.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>But while all credit must go to Cobain for making such a timeless melody, the real reason why the song worked so well is thanks to Grohl\u2019s way of constructing the song. His massive drum fill leading into the song has gone down in history at this point, and even at the time, producer Butch Vig remembered pacing around the room in excitement the minute that he heard the drums come roaring in on the song.<\/p>\n<p>Everyone would have had an inkling that the song was going to become a massive hit, but the fact that they weren\u2019t that convinced at the start really shows what an overnight sensation the band was going to become. No one saw them coming at all, and while everyone was working on their moves, trying to be the next Axl Rose, Cobain was proving that all you needed to succeed was a lot of drive and a few roaring guitars.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>  <a class=\"fw\" href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/preferences\/source?q=https:\/\/faroutmagazine.co.uk\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" style=\"\"> ADD AS A PREFERRED SOURCE ON GOOGLE <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"28\" height=\"28\" src=\"https:\/\/faroutmagazine.co.uk\/wp-content\/themes\/far-out-magazine\/img\/google-discover.svg\" alt=\"\"\/> <\/a>   <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Credits: Far Out \/ Alamy) Sat 18 April 2026 20:00, UK Dave Grohl probably didn\u2019t realise what he&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":456255,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[23794,96,128,6796,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-538721","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-dave-grohl","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-music","11":"tag-nirvana","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538721","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=538721"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538721\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/456255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=538721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=538721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=538721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}