The Nirvana 20 Day Song Challenge

[LilacFray]

Bumped into this on Facebook a few minutes ago, and I remembered Uncle Phatso's 365 and 30 Day Song Challenges and how it was a hit. Now here's a challenge for all the Nirvana fans in WrestleZone. Please use spoiler tags to avoid people's PCs from freezing and all. Also remember, no spam.

Day 01 - The first Nirvana song you ever heard
Day 02 - The song with your favorite lyrics
Day 03 - Your favorite song from Bleach
Day 04 - The song that made you a fan
Day 05 - A song you don't like much
Day 06 - Your favorite official or fan made video
Day 07 - Your favorite song from Nevermind
Day 08 - Your favorite song covered by Nirvana
Day 09 - A song you know all the words to and and sing loud while you head bang or cry
Day 10 - A song that makes you happy
Day 11 - Your favorite song from In Utero
Day 12 - A song you did not like at first, but now you love it
Day 13 - A song from your favorite Nirvana album
Day 14 - A song that makes you sad
Day 15 - Your favorite from MTV Unplugged in New York
Day 16 - A song from the first album you ever bought
Day 17 - Your favorite single
Day 18 - Your favorite from Incesticide
Day 19 - The song with your favorite riff or Kurt scream
Day 20 - Your favorite Nirvana song

So here goes.

Day 01 - The first Nirvana song you ever heard

Smells Like Teen Spirit​

Spoiler

[YOUTUBE]hTWKbfoikeg[/YOUTUBE]

Wish I had listened to Nirvana earlier, but hey, at least I do now. I liked this song the moment I heard it. I'm quite the noob fan but hey, I love this band. A friend of mine is a Nirvana crazy one and whenever it came around the topic of music between us, he'd always be 'Listening to some Nirvana' and one day, I was curious enough to try it myself. Soon enough, I was listening to more and more songs of theirs.

 

[Alex]

This my dear is going to be a bag of piss.


Day 01 - The first Nirvana song you ever heard

You Know You're Right

[YOUTUBE]qv96yJYhk3M&ob=av2e[/YOUTUBE]

Bit strange I know as the majority of people will probably list Smells Like Teen Spirit. Also strange when you realise this song didn't see the light of day till 2002. In fact I'd heard it on a wierd tv show about video games (my mum's friend hooked us up with it) and it was playing along with some clips from Onimusha 3. I loved the song and I liked the gameplay, so I brought the Nirvana compilation CD and Onimusha 3.

 

[Nate DaMac]

Please use spoiler tags to avoid people's PCs from freezing and all.

Just so you know, spoiler tags have no effect on whether or not your computer fucks up. Which is why I won't be using them.

Day 01 - The first Nirvana song you ever heard


I may have heard other Nirvana songs before this one, my mom would play a lot of different Rock music for us while we were in the car, but this is the first song I remember most vividly. Likely, just because my mom would act goofy and change the words to say, "I'm not smoking crack." and my brother and I found it hysterical. Great tune though, as are all of the songs on Nevermind.

 

[SorgFamily]

When I was younger I had a friend who was a few years older than me and while I was just starting to develop my own tastes in music (mostly rap) he was listening to grunge and classic rock. Whenever I'd go to his house he'd always bring out his guitar and play the riff to "Come As You Are". I can remember the first time he played it and said, "You know that song right?" I had no idea what song it was and he was shocked immediately pulling out Nevermind and skipping to "Come As You Are". That started the whole movement that ended in me giving up on rap entirely and working backwards through time from grunge. I can't thank my friend enough.

[YOUTUBE]vabnZ9-ex7o[/YOUTUBE]

Edit: I followed the cool kids and didn't use spoilers. Hope it doesn't cause any problems. I know next to nothing about computers.

 

[Alex]

Day 02 - The song with your favorite lyrics


[YOUTUBE]vabnZ9-ex7o[/YOUTUBE]

It's one of the few mellow songs on Nevermind and while Kurt Cobain could easily have made it a more angry tune he didn't. I just like how it talks about how you should be yourself no matter what and essentially saying fuck everyone else, but it does it in such a way that it doesn't seem that the song is a fuck you to judgemental people.

 

[LilacFray]

Just so you know, spoiler tags have no effect on whether or not your computer fucks up. Which is why I won't be using them.

Thanks! I didn't know that.

Edit: I followed the cool kids and didn't use spoilers. Hope it doesn't cause any problems. I know next to nothing about computers.

Meh. I'm following them too.

Day 02 - The song with your favorite lyrics

[YOUTUBE]VedqPGNTFLM&feature=related[/YOUTUBE]

"Sit in the sun
Fall asleep
Wish away
soul is cheap
Lesson learned
Wish me luck
Soothe the burn
Wake me up"

The best part of it all. And Nirvana's songs are so universal. It really is about how people interpret them. The lyrics are so quiet and deep in this song. Simple yet so... I don't know how to describe it. Not to mention how every couple of lines just sound so right by themselves. My mum heard me listening to this song one day and asked why I'm listening to such depressed songs. Haha.

 

[Dowdsy McDowds]

I missed day 1 so I'm gonna double up.

First Nirvana song - Smells Like Teen Spirit. As the video for this has already been posted a couple of times, I'll not go into overkill.

I was only 4 when Nevermind came out so I'm just assuming that SMTS was the song that popped my Nirvana cherry. Growing up, it was one of those songs I remember there being a bit of a buzz about without understanding why, and at first I wasn't that keen on it although that may have been due to my sister relentlessly playing it which kept me awake at nights, as the muffled noise was repeated over and over. It's a shame that I can't really remember the time that the song "clicked" for me due to how much I love it.

(Actually, I have an idea for a variant video I can post for this)

Day 02 - The song with your favorite lyrics
Heart-Shaped Box

Essentially there's one line that I think is just subtly brilliant; "She eyes me like a pisces when I am weak." With Kurt himself being a pisces, he's saying that the person in the song sees who he really is even at his lower points. That the song starts off with such an honest and downbeat lyric and continues with some almost contradictory lyrics in terms of attraction/care and unable to escape,
(I've been locked inside your Heart Shaped box for weeks
I've been drawn into your magnet tar pit trap
I wish I could eat your cancer when you turn black.)
is something that I really related to when I was growing up, both in terms of relationships with friends and family.

The imagery from the opening stanza is something that always stayed with me, and the video for the song really furthers this too.

 

[Nate DaMac]

I'll take advantage while
you hang me out to dry
But I can't see you every night
Free

Even when Kurt was writing a more "Pop" influenced song, he still manages to be as cryptic as possible. It's supposed to be about the fragile relationship he and his girlfriend at the time had and the fights they would get in mostly due to him refusing to get a job. I really get that part as the "Take advantage while you hang me out to dry" is really easy for me to relate to.

It's hard for me to really pick out a song with my favorite lyrics since, as you can probably tell, I don't know what the fuck he's talking about most of the time. This time though, I get it.

 

[SorgFamily]

[YOUTUBE]PoV76tdQONU[/YOUTUBE]

I've always enjoyed the flow of "Serve the Servants" off of In Utero. Just something about the lines:

"As my bones grew they did hurt, they hurt really bad. I tried hard to have a father, but instead I had a dad. I just want you to know that I don't hate you anymore, there is nothing I could say, that I haven't thought before."

As I read up on it I found out that Kurt said that that section is about how he's not mad at his dad for getting a "new" family and placing Kurt in the care of a friend of the family but he had no desire to talk to him either.

 

[nightmare]

Lithium.


"I'm so happy cause today I found my friends. They're in my head. I'm so ugly, but thats ok cause so are you."


Hell, all of Kurt's lyrics are bad ass. Its hard to choose because many of them stick in your head. Whether poetic or downright strange- The man had a way with words that could capture your emotions. Very few will ever come close to having as big of an impact that Nirvana had. In a world where so much music is trash, few can make a mark as big as Kurt did during those years.

 

[LilacFray]

Day 03 - Your favorite song from Bleach

[YOUTUBE]AhcttcXcRYY[/YOUTUBE]

This was hard to choose. I also like Negative as much but I guess I still like this song a bit more, a little like the odd one out of the album. :3

And it's a real challenge to post non spam, explaining a Nirvana song - didn't think I would find it this tough. >.<

 

[Alex]

Day 03 - Your favorite song from Bleach

I love Bleach, full on punk music pretty much and I love a lot of the tracks, Blew, About A Girl, Love Buzz, Negative Creep, School.

However I think one of my favourites is Floyd The Barber

[YOUTUBE]l-hk4IkTPgI[/YOUTUBE]

Apparently its a tongue in cheek song about an old TV show and using the characters as pyschopathic rapists and murderers. I like the music and I love how Kurt Cobain could take a nice TV show concept and make it crazy.

 

[SorgFamily]

However I think one of my favourites is Floyd The Barber

One of my favorites along with Blew. Each song appeals to me at different times, I don't think there's one I could call my absolute favorite but as of this moment it's Love Buzz. Some cascading pull-offs which is just odd in a Nirvana song and from about the second chorus to the end the bass becomes really funky. Plus you have a classic feedback solo at the end. Really good stuff. This is going to make me pull out my copy of "Bleach".

[YOUTUBE]ZLthJDXbq6Y [/YOUTUBE]

 

[Dowdsy McDowds]

Day 3 - Favourite Song From Bleach

Sorg mentioned it already, but Blew is probably just my favourite ahead of About A Girl. The bass intro just sounds so dirty and fuzzy, yet Kurt's voice seems to glide in over the guitar riff. The lyrics are by no means ground-breaking but are able to get across a sense of unease within a relationship by the constant repetition of "If you wouldn't mind..." as well as sexual tension/frustration too.

 

[Hollywood Naitch]

Day 01 - The first Nirvana song you ever heard

Smells Like Teen Spirit

Unfortunately, I have to go with the majority here, and say the most famous of all Kurt's songs.

I first heard it through my Dad. He was head of a sixth-form college here in England, and at the end of one school year there was a home made compilation CD left in the common room by one of the students, and it went unclaimed for the next 6 months in lost property, so eventually my Dad decided to have a listen to it, and as it was rock music and he knew I liked that sort of stff, he brought it home for me to listen to.

The first track on there was "Smells Like Teen Spirit", and I loved it immediately.

 

[LilacFray]

Day 04 - The song that made you a fan

[YOUTUBE]pkcJEvMcnEg&ob=av2e[/YOUTUBE]

Like I said before, the first Nirvana song I heard was Smells Like Teen Spirit and right after that, I looked up the album it belonged to and came to the Track Listings of Nevermind. And that's when I looked up lyrics, listened to its and bits of songs and ended up downloading the whole album. To point out one song which made me a fan is a little tricky, but I think I'll go with Lithium. I was pretty much obsessed with the song and found myself singing it over and over again, day and night.

 

[Alex]

Day 04 - The song that made you a fan

Smells Like Teen Spirit

I was hoping to leave it but ah well I'd be lying if I said this song didn't make me a fan. I got the Nirvana compilation and was listening to 'You Know You're Right' a lot, then I decided to listen to the rest of the album. The following tracks were really good, but it was the opening riff to Smells Like Teen Spirit that got me hooked, and when Dave Grohl's drumming started I was hooked. I wasn't even paying attention to the lyrics really, the music just awoke some sort of thing that made me dance around my room like a crazy person. Eventually I listened to the lyrics and interepreted it as some sort of take on anarchy which to my teenage mind made this song awesome. It wasn't until I read Kurt Cobain's biography much later that it seems it was written about sex (thus making it one of my favourite songs about sex)

 

[SorgFamily]

Day 04 - The song that made you a fan

The first song I heard as previously mentioned was "Come As You Are" but that to me was just a good opening riff. Something fun that my friend played on guitar to me that was relatively easy. As for the song that got me hooked though, it was probably "Smells Like Teen Spirit". I don't remember exactly how it made me feel or anything but I remember the following conversation:

Friend: You know Nirvana?
Me: No.
Friend: Well you've heard "Come As You Are" right?
Me: Just you playing it on guitar.
Friend (amazed): You've have heard "Smells Like Teen Spirit" though?
Me (nervous): I.......don't think so.
Friend starts throwing cd's around his room to find Nevermind

I would imagine he put it on and hit play. I know I wouldn't have listened to anymore if the first song didn't hook me so that's why I'm assuming "Smells Like Teen Spirit" made me a fan.

 

[LilacFray]

Day 05 - A song you don't like much

[YOUTUBE]ucClX9nGErU[/YOUTUBE]

Funny, because I can't really pick out a song I don't like... But I'm going with this song because I've always found it a little too depressing and slow for my liking. I had to sit down and think for sometime in order to remember a song I 'don't like much.' Since I find myself skipping this song often when it comes around, it's gotta be it.

 

[Alex]

Day 05 - A song you don't like much

[YOUTUBE]rH1qEqBF5S8[/YOUTUBE]

Its not that I don't like the song, I don't like how the context of the song is put into a rocking track. For those who don't know Polly is based on a story of a girl who was raped and the song shows how she ends up escaping by flirting with her rapist (the song is told by the rapists point of view) The version thats on Nevermind really make's you think about the whole thing, this version not so much. Don't get me wrong if there were different lyrics to the music I'd definitely dig it.

 

[Dowdsy McDowds]

Day 4 - The Song That Made You A Fan

As I chose Teen Spirit earlier, I guess Come As You Are solidified them as a band that I really wanted to hear more stuff by. In contrast to the roaring of Teen Spirit, CAYA is a lot calmer and composed yet still has a good release of noise towards the end. I was really happy they did this and not Teen Spirit on the Unplugged album too.

 

[SorgFamily]

Day 05 - A song you don't like much

There's a a ton of songs that I could do without. A lot of the stuff from Incesticide for example. "Beeswax", "Mexican Seafood", "Aero Zeppelin", "Hairspray Queen", Big Long Now". But if I had to pick something from one of their big 3 albums, I'd have to say "School" from Bleach. A little to repetitive for my taste which is odd because that's one of Nirvana's hallmarks. But all 13 words from the song turn me off.

[YOUTUBE]hkEwIemPwWI [/YOUTUBE]

 

[Hollywood Naitch]

I'll take advantage while
you hang me out to dry
But I can't see you every night
Free

Even when Kurt was writing a more "Pop" influenced song, he still manages to be as cryptic as possible. It's supposed to be about the fragile relationship he and his girlfriend at the time had and the fights they would get in mostly due to him refusing to get a job. I really get that part as the "Take advantage while you hang me out to dry" is really easy for me to relate to.

It's hard for me to really pick out a song with my favorite lyrics since, as you can probably tell, I don't know what the fuck he's talking about most of the time. This time though, I get it.

I think Nate pretty much said everything I wanted to say regarding my favourite lyrics in a Nirvana. I like alot of Cobain's lyrics, but I really can't work out what he means alot of the time, but "About A Girl" is very clear.

Great song, great lyrics.

 

[Hollywood Naitch]

Day 03 - Your favorite song from Bleach

As I stole Nate's post for my "Day 2" entry, I think I had better do day 3 as well today!

[YOUTUBE]7J37mp0JJCE[/YOUTUBE]

I love "Blew", it is definitely in my top 3 Nirvana songs. Really distorted, dirty riff which is what grunge is all about to me. Kurt's vocals are really passionate, aggressive without being violent and it is just a song that makes me want to bang my head in some sweaty rock club. This is Nirvana at their very, very best. An underrated gem of a track in my opinion.

 

[LilacFray]

Day 06 - Your favorite official or fan made video

[YOUTUBE]PbgKEjNBHqM&ob=av2e[/YOUTUBE]

"Thoroughly all right and decent fellas!" xD I love this video.

1. The 60s look.
2. Krist's cute with the short hair cut.
3. It's greyscale!