10 Nirvana Covers Better Than The Original
1. Where Did You Sleep Last Night?
To close off their MTV Unplugged concert, Nirvana decided to pull out something special. The finale is not just their finest cover (and an all-time great cover full stop) but one of the best songs in their estimable catalogue, made totally their own.
Best known prior to this for Lead Belly’s mid-’40s renditions, “Where Did You Sleep Last Night” - also known as “In The Pines” and several other names - is a traditional American folk song. A murder ballad of sorts, it’s full of horror imagery, regret, and rage that Cobain taps into in a performance of singular power.
The performance starts slowly, with a rolling guitar line and subtle work from Novoselic and Grohl accompanying Cobain’s strumming. But after a brief instrumental break, the song transforms. Cobain’s vocals leap up an octave and turn from a soft melody to an astonishing scream that reflects the narrator’s dwindling patience with the lover to whom he directs the titular question.
By the vocal take’s end, he only has a croak and a croon left, injecting an amazing amount of pain into the final syllables. It was recorded just four months before he died - the emotion in the performance can’t be faked.