stories-behind-the-songs

[stories-behind-the-songs]

“Don't Cry” the saddest song made in the beginning of the band

This song has two versions that appear on the twin albums Use Your Illusion I and II, released simultaneously in 1991, with the only difference being the vocal tracks modified by Axl Rose. There is a third version that was a demo recording composed 6 years earlier, which according to Axl, was the first song written since the creation of the band as it still had the voices of his L.A. Guns bandmates, however, it was not published on their first album as they did not find the sound they wanted.

The music video starts a cinematic narrative, which continues with "November Rain" and ends with "Estranged," inspired by the dramatic short story "Without You" by musician, writer, and friend of Axl, Del James.

According to Axl, the song is about a girl who was first Izzy Stradlin's girlfriend and then his for 2 years, which caused problems for continuing with the band. Axl was very much in love with the girl to the extent of tattooing her face on his right arm, however, the girl was convinced that the relationship was not going to work and while Axl was sitting outside the nightclub "El Roxy," she decided to break up with him, to which Axl began to cry and the girl just kept repeating "Don't cry."

The next night Axl went to reconcile with his friend Stradlin and they made peace, and by combining a very sad lyric that Axl already had written, with the very sad guitar that Stradlin had composed, they managed to finish the song in just 5 minutes.

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“Estranged” by Guns N’ Roses, one of the music video most expensive in History

It is the eleventh song from the album "Use Your Illusion II" from 1991, and it is one of the band's longest songs with a duration of over 9 minutes. The music video had a budget of 4 million dollars and is considered one of the most expensive in history.

This video clip is the third and last of a trilogy of cinematic shorts, written by vocalist Axl Rose and directed by Andy Morahan, who was already recognized as one of the best music video directors, having previously worked with important bands and famous characters like Ozzy Osbourne and Michael Jackson.

The trilogy of cinematic shorts begins with the songs "Don't Cry" and "November Rain," in which Axl Rose's then-girlfriend, Stephanie Seymour, played the vocalist's girlfriend. However, for the third video in 1993, they had ended their relationship, and Axl was forced to abandon the original plans, thus causing a thematic disconnection with the first videos.

According to guitarist Slash, the song was written in 1990 during his prolonged stay in Chicago, while Axl was going through the saddest moment of his life, as his marriage in Las Vegas with model Erin Everly was annulled after it was revealed that Axl was emotionally abusing her, to the point of threatening to take his own life if they did not marry that same day.

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In Bloom | Nirvana

The second song from the 1991 album Nevermind is a parody dedicated to new Nirvana fans who did not belong to the grunge community, but knew the band after the rapid popularity they gained from their first album. The parody is also directed at superficial fans of the underground scene that the group was gradually discovering in its audience and who could not differentiate Nirvana's songs from other Seattle bands like Pearl Jam, with whom they were often confused.

The song was originally reinterpreted several times, once being performed over the phone from Kurt's house, and in the end, the song took a more pop form to the point of featuring a several-minute instrumental bridge, which producer Butch Vig felt ruined the song and decided to physically cut it from the tape with a razor blade and then throw it in the trash.

As in many of Nirvana's songs, In Bloom alternates between calm verses and strong choruses, while the lyrics seek to create a brilliant irony of dark and cryptic lyrics with a melody so catchy that millions of people enjoy and sing along without a problem.

This song was released with different music videos, the most popular and recognized being the one directed by Kevin Kerslake. Cobain originally wanted to tell the story of a woman born into the Ku Klux Klan and who later became aware of how perverse its members were, however The idea being very complicated to carry out, was better changed by a parody on the musical shows of the 60s.

The video took on a humorous tone because Cobain was tired of people always taking them so seriously and wanted to show that they also had a fun side, showing the band members dressed in the style of the band The Beach Boys.

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Heart Shaped Box | Nirvana

It is the third song from the third studio album In Utero from 1993, the song was almost forgotten since Kurt, after composing the opening riff, hoped that his bandmates could continue with it. However, for a long time the tune only ended in annoying noise and it was not until in an improvised session, Cobain found the vocal melody that instantly allowed the ideas to flow that could finish it, leaving the members convinced that in the end it was a good song.

In an interview, Courtney Love stated that she had heard the riff when Kurt was writing it in a closet, and when she asked if he could let her use that riff for her band, Kurt told her to fuck off and closed the door on her face.

Courtney Love claims that the title was inspired by a heart-shaped box that he had given to Cobain, however Cobain had originally titled the song as Heart-Shaped Coffin, and in the biography written by Michael Azerrad about Kurt Cobain, this gives to understand that the lyrics were a love song for children with cancer, since every time he thought about it it affected him on the highest emotional level, more than anything else.

The music video was originally going to be directed by Kevin Kerslake, who had already worked with the band before and who prepared 5 concept proposals for this song, however in the end an agreement was not reached and the band ended up working with Anton Corbijn who followed the literally the surreal concept that Cobain had in mind. After the video's release, Kevin Kerslake sued the band, claiming they stole his idea without giving him credit, and the case was eventually settled out of court.

Curiously, in 2012 when the song was performed by Lana Del Rey, Courtney Love wrote several tweets to her where she assured that the song talked about her intimate area and that she should think about it when she sang it.

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About A Girl | Nirvana

Considered Kurt Cobain's first great pop composition, it is said to have been written and recorded at home, after the musician spent an entire night listening to the album Meet The Beatles from the late eighties, Cobain sought to hide his intentions to write pop music, since he was afraid of dividing the band's fans with a sound different from grunge and the underground, he considered it to be something risky for the time.

However, the producer of the Bleach album was enthusiastic about the composition and saw it as a single with potential, so it was included as the third song on the 1989 album. Years later, producer Butch Vig revealed to a magazine that Kurt Cobain was a great fan of The Beatles and the more time he spent with him, the more noticeable the influence he had from them when writing his songs.

It is said that once the song was finished it had no title, so when he introduced it to his bandmates they asked him what it was about and Kurt only told them it was about a girl, the girl the song talks about is Tracy Marander, in that moment, Cobain's girlfriend with whom he lived and who saw the birth of the band Nirvana.

The song talks about the couple's difficult romantic relationship, and Cobain's notorious anxiety to be heard. All mainly caused because Cobain refused to look for work and share cleaning duties for his pets.

Strangely, Cobain never told Marander that he wrote this song for her and she only found out about it until 1998 when she read Michael Azerrad's biography of the band.

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Something in the Way | Nirvana

It is one of the darkest and most mysterious songs in their entire discography, it is the last from the one thousand nine hundred ninety-one album Nevermind, where producer Butch Vig aimed for the band to play outside their comfort zone. This was one of the few songs with a slow tempo that Cobain ended up performing alone with an acoustic guitar that was rarely in tune.

For a long time it was believed that the lyrics of the song spoke about the life of the singer who, as a teenager, lived on the streets of Aberdeen in Washington after being kicked out of his home, and who survived by sleeping and fishing under the street bridge. Young.

However, it was not until 2001 that Cobain's biography, Heavier than Heaven by writer Charles Cross, confirmed that during the four months that Cobain lived on the streets, he slept in various places such as cardboard boxes, hallways of buildings abandoned, waiting rooms in town hospitals, etc. And that he wrote the lyrics imagining what it would feel like to be a person who lives under the bridge and is slowly dying of an illness, since that was a kind of fantasy that the singer had.

The song gained quite a bit of popularity after two thousand twenty when it was used in the trailer for the film The Batman performed by Robert Pattinson, where it was placed at number two on the United States rock digital song sales chart.

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