10 Rock Songs That Were Written For Somebody Else
3. Old Age - Nirvana
Everything about Nirvana's ascent felt like it was so self contained in the early days. As much as band members would come and go in the Seattle music scene from day one, you were never going to see Kurt jamming with Soundgarden onstage or write a song for Alice in Chains any time soon. He could write outside of his wheelhouse when he wanted to, and his alternate musical personas made for one of the greatest songs his wife ever sang.
That's not to say that Courtney Love isn't a good songwriter in her own right. Despite people claiming that Kurt helped catapult her to stardom, Old Age is the only song written by Cobain that Courtney ended up using for Live Through This, having the same kind of punky sounds that were a lot more common with the energy of Hole than that of Nirvana. Considering the route that Kurt was going down during In Utero, this song would have felt so out of place on that project, being more on the bratty side of things and much more suited to Love's style.
And as much as this song might have fit in with Love's aesthetic at the time, this may have been one of the only times that her and Kurt's songwriting actually gelled properly. Sure, there was no way Courtney could wake up one day and suddenly write Smells Like Teen Spirit, but there's also no way that Kurt could write a song like Miss World if he tried.