Song Interpretations
Something in the Way, Nirvana
March 18, 2007
The Beatles are an abiding presence in the music of Nirvana. They turn up in the unending lists of musical influences that Kurt Cobain jotted down in his journals. On one such list they turn up #2, behind the Stooges but before Leadbelly. The Beatles album that Cobain points to first is Meet the Beatles, but he crosses that out and writes in Something New. These are both early Beatles albums.. and Cobain's admiration for the Beatles was tied to their early work.
Cobain's biographer Charles Cross writes the following about the genesis of the song "About a Girl":
"About a Girl" was an important song in Kurt's development as a writer... it was so unabashedly melodic that in Nirvana's early live performances, audiences mistook it as a Beatles' cover. Kurt told Steve Shillinger that on the day he wrote "About a Girl," he played Meet the Beatles for three hours straight to get in the mood. This was hardly necessary: ever since he was a toddler he'd studied their work... [118]
While I find it unlikely that "studied" was the correct word for the toddler Cobain's interaction with the Beatles, it is reasonable to recognize the Beatles as an important influence on Cobain.
If you are a Beatles fan then you can close your eyes and remember those magical opening words sung by George Harrison:
Something in the way she moves
Attracts me like no other lover...
The song "Something in the Way" from Nevermind, after a subdued opening, picks up a delicate soaring melody that recalls the ethereal melody by George Harrison:
Something in the way, mmm
Something in the way, yeah, mmm
It is a striking transformation. We expect a conclusion to the phrase "something in the way".. but it does not come and all we get is the meaningless "mmmmmm". "Something in the Way" must now stand alone as a statement, which we could paraphrased as "there is something between me and a goal". Of course we are never told what that goal might be. We are left with the unidentified anxiety that there is something wrong.. something stopping a movement.. something not right.. "something in the way".
The song contains one stanza repeated twice:
Underneath the bridge
The tarp has sprung a leak
And the animals I've trapped
Have all become my pets
And I'm living off of grass
And the drippings from the ceiling
It's okay to eat fish
'Cause they don't have any feelings
"Underneath the bridge" is a reference to a place that has taken on a somewhat mythical status. Cobain claimed that he spent some nights under the Young Street Bridge in Aberdeen, Washington when he got kicked out of his mom's house. The biographer Charles Cross is at some pains to deny this ever really happened.. and that seems a reasonable conclusion. But if Cobain's sister is right in claiming that neighborhood kids would go there to smoke pot, then it is easy to imagine that Cobain had some experience underneath the bridge.
For a stunning panoramic view of this American place see this website.. It is an image that will add immeasurably to your appreciation of the song.
With the reference to a tarp springing a leak and drippings from the ceiling we can imagine a dark damp place.. a young man coiled up inside his own mind. The notion that he has "trapped" animals briefly creates the vision of a self-reliant survivor making good. Then right away that vision is contradicted by the non-survivorish action of befriending and making pets out of those trapped animals. Refusing to eat the animals, we are told that he is "living off of grass" and "drippings from the ceiling". By "grass" he could mean pot (and I can almost hear the snickering).. but it is more interesting to think of this line in terms of the biblical story of Nebuchadnezzar II who lost his sanity and had to live as an animal for seven years. The story was illustrated by William Blake:
That image works perfectly as an illustration to "Something in the Way".. It catches the dampness, lostness, and animality that Cobain expresses. Those eyes express something similar to the way Cobain comes across in his journals.
Yet there are redeeming factors in the song. We can start with the touching solicitude for other creatures.. the inability to hurt anything that has "feelings". That solicitude is anchored in Cobain's biography, where we encounter surprising incidents of care for animals. Then those soaring broken-off lines: "something in the way.." hint at some further point, some place to which his spirit could soar.. if only.. if only there wasn't this something barring the way. I am haunted by the image of a lost young man able to sing is lostness through the great soaring melody of love-found..
[note: Old Roads is not united in its support of Nirvana and its music and there is at least one member of this team who disagrees with the prominence given to the band.]
more song interpretations:
The Village Green Preservation Society, The Kinks
