Nirvana never had the best track record when writing decipherable lyrics, but when it came to women's rights, Kurt Cobain never minced any of his words.
… leave it to Nirvana to come in and actually make a decent stance for feminist issues.
Granted, it’s hard to talk about Nirvana’s approach to this topic on principle. Since all of these are issues that affect the opposite sex, it’s hard to justify Cobain’s stance at times without him coming off as the white knight in shining armour doing his best attempt to save the dignity of an entire gender.
But looking through how Nirvana tackles feminism, it’s not about being the saviour for women. It’s about putting men in the shoes of the opposite sex and seeing what happens when they are put into some of the most deplorable scenarios anyone would have to go through. Just look no further than their most famous feminist tune, ‘Polly’.
While this is the closest thing to a “ballad” Nirvana made on their breakthrough album Nevermind, it feels like a ballad in the same way that those extremely dark Western country songs used to be. Writing from the point of view of a sexual predator who tied up Polly in his van, there’s already an eerie energy coming off the song before we even get to the chorus.
22·2 months ago