“I’m not crazy”: the song Billy Corgan thinks Nirvana ripped off for ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’

Woody Guthrie was famously quoted as saying, “That guy stole that from me, but I steal from everybody”. Of course, he referred to the sharing nature of the folk community. Still, the line between gentle borrowing and plagiarism is a fine one, especially when it comes to highly commercial music, such as ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ by Nirvana.

Few will deny the unique songwriting prowess of Nirvana’s late frontman, Kurt Cobain, but a couple of his biggest hits have been flagged as highly derivative since they arrived in the early 1990s. For example, the classic Nevermind single ‘Come as You Are’ bears an uncanny resemblance to the 1985 Killing Joke single ‘Eighties’. The lyrics are wildly different, but the bass hook carries the stench of a court hearing.

Elsewhere, Black Francis, the lead vocalist and principal songwriter of Pixies has frequently rebuked Nirvana for being generally derivative of the loud-quiet-loud formula he trailblazed in the late 1980s. Cobain was, indeed, an outspoken fan of Pixies and even listed the band’s 1988 debut album, Surfer Rosa, in second place in his top 50 favourite albums ever in the early ‘90s.

In a 2013 interview, Reuters asked Francis to determine his most significant contribution to rock music. Francis flippantly replied: “Being original, influencing Nirvana so they could rip a song. I’ll admit it — if Kurt Cobain’ fessed up to it, fuck it, I’ll agree with it, you ripped us off.”

CUTTING ROOM FLOOR
FROM THE VAULT
“I’m not crazy”: the song Billy Corgan thinks Nirvana ripped off for ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit'(Credits: Far Out / Alamy / Djdroga)
MUSIC » FROM THE VAULT
“I’m not crazy”: the song Billy Corgan thinks Nirvana ripped off for ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’
Jordan Potter
Thu 14 March 2024 17:15, UK
Woody Guthrie was famously quoted as saying, “That guy stole that from me, but I steal from everybody”. Of course, he referred to the sharing nature of the folk community. Still, the line between gentle borrowing and plagiarism is a fine one, especially when it comes to highly commercial music, such as ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ by Nirvana.

Few will deny the unique songwriting prowess of Nirvana’s late frontman, Kurt Cobain, but a couple of his biggest hits have been flagged as highly derivative since they arrived in the early 1990s. For example, the classic Nevermind single ‘Come as You Are’ bears an uncanny resemblance to the 1985 Killing Joke single ‘Eighties’. The lyrics are wildly different, but the bass hook carries the stench of a court hearing.

Elsewhere, Black Francis, the lead vocalist and principal songwriter of Pixies has frequently rebuked Nirvana for being generally derivative of the loud-quiet-loud formula he trailblazed in the late 1980s. Cobain was, indeed, an outspoken fan of Pixies and even listed the band’s 1988 debut album, Surfer Rosa, in second place in his top 50 favourite albums ever in the early ‘90s.

In a 2013 interview, Reuters asked Francis to determine his most significant contribution to rock music. Francis flippantly replied: “Being original, influencing Nirvana so they could rip a song. I’ll admit it — if Kurt Cobain’ fessed up to it, fuck it, I’ll agree with it, you ripped us off.”

At least, like Mr Guthrie, Cobain held his hands up to admit his sound wasn’t as original as some fans might claim. Speaking to Billboard in 2017, Billy Corgan, the frontman of the Smashing Pumpkins, remembered noticing a derivation while listening to Nevermind, which Cobain freely acknowledged several months later.

Corgan remembered that it was on July 4th, 1991, that he first heard Nirvana’s Nevermind, on producer Butch Vig’s insistence. “He had a boombox, and he presses play, and you hear the ‘Teen Spirit’ [imitates the guitar riff], and I thought — wait, that’s ‘More Than a Feeling’ by Boston!”

If Corgan came face to face with Cobain, he might have asked whether Boston’s 1976 classic had been on his mind while conjuring the song. As it turned out, he didn’t have to. Several months later, Cogan went to see Nirvana play during a visit to Tokyo. “They got to the moment in the show where they were going to play ‘Teen Spirit’. You had a sense like, ‘Here it comes,’ or it was an encore or something,” he recalled, “and Kurt started playing ‘More than a Feeling’. Of course, it went right over the heads of the crowd, but it was like, ‘OK! So, I’m not crazy!’”

Over the years, artists have come head-to-head in court over similar cases of copyright infringement. The court cases that ensue strive to define the line between outright plagiarism and a derivative variation. In Nirvana’s case, Cobain just about steered clear of copying Boston’s progression chord for chord. Meanwhile, Killing Joke decided not to file a lawsuit, considering the implications of taking one of the world’s most beloved bands to court.

Listen to Nirvana’s ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ and Boston’s ‘More Than a Feeling’ below