What’s That Sound? Examining the unsettling squeaks in ‘Drain You’ by Nirvana

Nirvana’s Nevermind is such a cultural behemoth that everyone has their favourite track. The record is a complete masterpiece from start to finish, and no matter what Kurt Cobain would say about it after the trio were catapulted to Beatles-esque fame, every song is an unfettered classic. Naturally, given music’s inherent subjectivity, listeners can make a solid case for each exhibit being the finest.

While the lead single ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ is deemed to typify the record’s power, innovation, and broader significance, the immense crossover hit only accounts for a small fraction of its potency. Elsewhere, others go for the darkness of ‘Something in the Way’ or even the unmistakable groove of ‘In Bloom’. But, for legions of the grunge heroes’ disciples, ‘Drain You’ takes the top spot.

Like many of Cobain’s efforts, it’s a track that emerged from uncertain origins. Still, it is widely deemed a warped love song regarding his break up with Tobi Vail, and materialised during a period of prolific writing for him, with the opening lyric “One baby to another says: ‘I’m lucky to have met you’” seemingly pointing to his romantic woes. In Michael Azerrad’s 1993 biography of the band Come As You Are, Cobain told him that the lyrics brought to mind “two brat kids who are in the same hospital bed”. It certainly speaks to the dark Generation X humour he was known for.

Musically, the layers of pulsating guitars placed upon the fierce rhythms of drummer Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic’s assertive bass work drive the song straight into the prefrontal cortex, as the composition astutely toes the line between infectious pop melodies and punk fury. Regarding the guitars, producer Butch Vig revealed that the track has “the record for most guitar overdubs on Nevermind“. The studio whizz wasn’t happy with the first take, so elected to make it more all-encompassing entirely.

To do this, they used a clean track and five distorted ones, which included two weaponising the grit of a Mesa Boogie amplifier, two through a Fender Bassman, and one dubbed the “super grunge”, employing a distortion pedal on top of the in-built settings. Vig knew that the opening lyric was vital to the song’s power, so he needed the music to kick in immediately to augment it. As Cobain notoriously hated overdubbing, Vig would commit to a touch of skullduggery and fib that the guitars sounded out of tune or there was a problem with the recording device. Still, secretly, he was constructing a sonic edifice, which he later described as “glorious”.

The most intriguing thing about the song has always been the atmospheric breakdown. In the 2002 Classic Albums documentary that examines the making of Nevermind, Grohl said: “Well, I guess the middle section of ‘Drain You’ would be the ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ of Nevermind because there’s more than one guitar going on. But, that seemed like a section that was greatly influenced by something that Sonic Youth would do; it was just about atmospheric dynamics, some sort of chaotic crescendo or something that would happen in the middle of the song.”

Novoselic echoed this bombastic nature: “What we wanted to do was have a section in the middle of the song that was like The Who. Even Kurt said, ‘It’s gonna be our ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’ part.”

Vig also agreed, describing the interlude as a type of “free-form freak out” and likening it to Sonic Youth in how the guitar chords hang during this section. As this was Nirvana, they put their distinctive spin on the blueprint set out by the New York band. To record this intense section, they kept the microphones rolling, which captured a collection of strange and unsettling squeaks that emerge from out of nowhere and have no prior context in the song.

According to Vig, these random squeaks, which had puzzled listeners since release, were actually the sound of toys Cobain had brought into the studio, including a squeaky mouse and rubber duck. To heighten their effect, engineer Andy Wallace then added delay and other processing to make them appear like one of the terrifying sights found under Sid’s bed in Toy Story some four years later.

Exacerbating the tension further is also a series of noises that sound like steam being released from a piece of heavy machinery. In another display of Cobain’s resourcefulness, they were actually FX produced straight from the frontman’s mouth.