10 Rock Songs You Didn't Realize Were Protest Tracks

Throughout most of Nirvana’s history, Kurt Cobain was not known to mince words about what he thought of his audience or his music. First he called out the mixes of Nevermind for sounding too slick, only to be disgusted when he found out that the same jocks who used to shove him in a locker back in school were now fans of his band. If he couldn’t change his audience though, he could at least control what he was going to say in his songs.

Though Polly was the first overtly dark song that Kurt wrote about women’s rights, Sappy waited years before finally being released, giving us a clear picture of what Cobain sees as the horrors of domestic life. Taking the point of view of a housewife, Cobain just talks about all of the things that she does to please her man, knowing that she can only exist in this state because that will make him happy. From the wordplay, Cobain almost sees this kind of behavior more like a possession than anything else, saying that this man wants nothing more than to just keep her in a jar so she won’t be able to go anywhere.

For all we know, this woman may have had hopes and dreams to do something better with her life, only to find the end of her story in a laundry room, trying desperately to keep her marriage intact so she won’t find herself kicked to the curb. And it’s not like Kurt was all about image with these topics either. If you look in the liner notes for their B-sides album Incestide, he goes so far as to encourage any sexists to not buy their records and expresses a strong distaste for anyone who harms women. Kurt stood by his morals, and was willing to sacrifice most of his fame if it meant getting his point across.