29 Best Nirvana Songs

“Negative Creep”

Song year: 1989

“Negative Creep” is another example of early Nirvana, where the music is dirty and raw, and the lyrics are simple but high-energy. It is the way Cobain sings them, the emotion and variations he lends with his voice, that escalates the song and keeps it interesting.

This song is about negative people, people who always see the worst side of every situation and wallow in it. The speaker has a self-awareness in this song, though. He calls himself a “Negative Creep,” so he knows, and he’s choosing to be one.

“Serve the Servants”

Song year: 1993

“Serve the Servants” came out on Nirvana’s follow-up to Nevermind, In Utero. The pressures of success and expectations put on Nirvana, especially Kurt Cobain’s shoulders, were a lot to bear.

Cobain’s lyrics here are autobiographical with references to Nevermind, “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” the public image of his wife Courtney Love, and the mythos of Cobain’s own origin story with his parents and their divorce.

“Serve the Servants” shows Cobain laying out everything everyone thinks they know about him and lashing out at them for being so limiting. This is a common theme throughout quite a few Nirvana songs. Cobain seemed to feel pigeon-holed, pedestaled and scapegoated, and those things didn’t have anything to do with what he was trying to do.

“Marigold”

Song year: 1993

Released as a B-side for the “Heart Shaped Box” single, “Marigold” is a divergent and unique song for Nirvana. Dave Grohl wrote the song and sang the lead vocals, which is the only time he features as lead vocalist and is indeed the only time Kurt Cobain doesn’t.

Grohl had been working on “Marigold” for some time when they decided to record it during the In Utero sessions.

One of the most interesting things about this song is that although Grohl wrote it and it features his voice, it sounds very much like a Nirvana song and not like a Foo Fighters song. There is even a bit of a Cobain timbre to Grohl’s voice.

The sparse lyrics here are full of emotionally evocative imagery, and while they are cryptic, this song is about desire and ambition, what it takes, and what it costs to have it all.

“Pennyroyal Tea”

Song year: 1993

As the name of the album prepares you for, In Utero is full of language and imagery about the female reproductive system. While the term, “in utero” refers to a woman’s uterus, it also refers to something happening before birth, something that is a part of a person as their DNA.

The titular tea can cause a miscarriage in large doses. However, due to its toxicity, this is extremely dangerous and can cause death. So while this song could be seen to be about abortion, it is also about self-abortion or suicide ideation.

It is hard after someone dies from suicide not to make every lyric they wrote, every word they said a sign, but this song, while cloaked in metaphor, is not opaque in its depiction of mental illness and addiction.

“Drain You”

Song year: 1991

Some theories speculate “Drain You” is another one about Cobain’s relationship with Bikini Kill’s Tobi Vail. Other theories say this song is about Cobain’s heroin use. It could be one or the other, but the miraculous thing about songwriting and the way metaphor works is that it could be about both.

Whatever inspired Cobain to write this song, it is about consumptive love, whether it’s a reliance on a toxic partner or a substance like heroin. The lyrics are about giving up everything for the thing that makes you feel good, even if it’s killing you figuratively or literally.

“Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge On Seattle”

Song year: 1993

Frances Farmer was a famous actress in the 1930s and 40s from Seattle. She had a reputation for being “difficult” to work with. A drunk driving arrest and parole violation led to a series of involuntary commitments to an asylum, where she was given shock therapy and a lobotomy. Her story shows the darkness and abuse of the mental health system of that time.

Cobain felt drawn to Farmer and her story and saw some parallels to how she was treated by the media and the way they treated him and his wife.

The song is about the people who relied on Farmer, Cobain, and Love’s status as hot messes so that they could be exploited. The lyrics show a wish for privacy and the ability to feel.

“Big Cheese”

Song year: 1989

Released on Bleach, “Big Cheese” was also the B-side to Nirvana’s first single, “Love Buzz.”

The song is an apparent dig at managers or record company guys. The ones that pressure bands to do things they don’t necessarily want to do for money and marketing reasons. The lyrics may have been inspired by Sub Pop’s Johnathan Poneman, producer at Sub Pop, for the strain he put Nirvana under while they were there.

“Scentless Apprentice”

Song year: 1993

“Scentless Apprentice” takes inspiration from Perfume, a novel by Patrick Suskind. In the book, a man born with an incredible sense of smell has no smell of his own. He becomes a perfumer’s apprentice and begins to murder people for their scent to create a masterpiece fragrance.

This song could be seen as the cannibalistic nature of creativity. How an artist might take inspiration from other artists and collage them together rather than come up with something all their own.

However, it may also be about the media’s glomming on to Nirvana, taking them and their music out of context, and jumping on the bandwagon of any other band that might be considered grunge.

“Jesus Doesn’t Want Me For a Sunbeam”

Song year: 1994

Finally, we’ll wrap up this list of the 29 best Nirvana songs with another brilliant cover performed and recorded during Unplugged. “Jesus Doesn’t Want Me For a Sunbeam” by The Vaselines happens to be Cobain’s favorite tune.

The song is a parody of a traditional Christian song called, “I’ll Be a Sunbeam,” or “Jesus Wants Me For a Sunbeam.” The Vaselines changed it to reflect a rejection by Jesus, God, and religion. This song is about someone who does not see themselves as a ray of light and doesn’t care to be one.

Top Nirvana Songs, Final Thoughts

While Nirvana had only a handful of albums, their influence on music, culture, and even how we think about addiction and mental illness cannot be understated.

Teens in the 90s saw something in Nirvana that they saw in themselves, but couldn’t name. For all of Kurt Cobain’s railing at the business and the media, he gave a generation of kids company in their misery. And that legacy continues.