Encore: 'Smells Like Teen Spirit,' The Anthem For A Generation That Didn't Want One

"Smells Like Teen Spirit" made Nirvana's Kurt Cobain a reluctant spokesman for Generation X, and the song became an anthem for a generation that didn't want one.

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

If you are a member of Generation X, like me - the generation sandwiched between baby boomers and millennials - there's a good chance you remember the first time you heard these chords.

(SOUNDBITE OF NIRVANA SONG, "SMELLS LIKE TEEN SPIRIT")

KELLY: That's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by Nirvana from 1991. The song became an anthem for a generation that was ambivalent about traditional values and jaded with mainstream culture. Here's NPR's Joel Rose, a Gen Xer himself, with an encore from our American Anthem series on songs that unite, challenge and celebrate. We first aired this story back in April.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)

JOEL ROSE: Nirvana played the song for the first time at a small club in Seattle.

(SOUNDBITE OF VIDEO)

KURT COBAIN: This song is called "Smells Like Teen Spirit."

ROSE: There's a grainy video of the show. It's April 1991. Nirvana hasn't even recorded "Smells Like Teen Spirit" yet, so nearly everyone in the audience is hearing the song for the first time. And no one knew what a big deal it would go on to be - including Jennie Boddy. She was a friend of the band and a publicist for Sub Pop Records, the indie label that put out Nirvana's first record, "Bleach."

JENNIE BODDY: They started playing the new song, and people erupted.

(SOUNDBITE OF VIDEO)

NIRVANA: (Singing) I'm a liar, and I'm famous.

BODDY: We were being slimed on by shirtless guys, like, just moshing.

(SOUNDBITE OF VIDEO)

NIRVANA: (Singing) I feel stupid and contagious. Here we are now...

BODDY: My friend Susan started hyperventilating, she thought it was so good. And she was like, I can't believe what they just played. It was just instantaneous. It was crazy.

(SOUNDBITE OF VIDEO)

NIRVANA: (Playing music).

(APPLAUSE)

ROSE: That was the beginning of a crazy year for Nirvana. They were at the cutting edge of a wave that was labeled grunge. And the band's new album, "Nevermind," came out a few months later on a major label. And suddenly, "Smells Like Teen Spirit" was all over the radio.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SMELLS LIKE TEEN SPIRIT")

NIRVANA: (Singing) Yeah.

ROSE: The video, featuring cheerleaders with the anarchy symbol scrawled on their black uniforms, was in heavy rotation on MTV. And nine months after they played the song live for the first time, Nirvana was performing it on "Saturday Night Live."

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE")

NIRVANA: (Playing music).

HUA HSU: And I just remember feeling as though it was this inescapable presence in my life.

ROSE: Hua Hsu is a staff writer at The New Yorker. In 1991, he was a 14-year-old in Northern California when he heard "Smells Like Teen Spirit" for the first time.

HSU: Like millions of kids my age, like, this was the first thing that felt like it was mine. And as a teenager, I think you're really trying to figure out your place in the world. And I think this song, in particular, felt so ambivalent about its own success.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SMELLS LIKE TEEN SPIRIT")

NIRVANA: (Singing) I found it hard. It's hard to find. Oh well, whatever. Never mind.

ROSE: Oh, well. Whatever. Never mind. Those words cut right to the heart of Generation X - kids who were born in the 1960s and '70s. We were too jaded for a feel-good singalong anthem, says NPR Music critic Ann Powers.

ANN POWERS: "Smells Like Teen Spirit" is an unusual anthem because it refuses the role of the anthem. It's perfect for the generation it represented because this was a cohort that was so ambivalent about any traditional values - you know, conventional success.

ROSE: There's that word again - ambivalence. Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain was famously ambivalent about the band's success. Jennie Boddy, now vice president for publicity at Capitol Records, says you can see that in the handmade T-shirt Cobain wore for the band's photo shoot with Rolling Stone magazine.

BODDY: What did he wear on the Rolling Stone cover? Corporate...

ROSE: Corporate magazines still suck.

(LAUGHTER)

BODDY: People often will say, like, well, they ushered in the new generation or anything. But what are you supposed to say? (Laughter) A mosquito, my libido - that's the spokesperson.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SMELLS LIKE TEEN SPIRIT")

NIRVANA: (Singing) A mulatto, an albino, a mosquito, my libido - yeah.

ROSE: Cobain often warned interviewers against reading too much into his lyrics. Here he is talking to Canadian TV channel MuchMusic in 1993.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

COBAIN: I was just using pieces of poetry and just garble - just garbage, you know? - just stuff that just would spew out of me at the time. And a lot of times when I write lyrics, it's usually at the last second because I'm really lazy. So - and then I find myself having to come up with explanations for it.

DANNY GOLDBERG: I don't believe that at all. I think he worked as carefully on the lyrics as he did on everything else.

ROSE: Danny Goldberg was Nirvana's manager. He's written a memoir about Cobain called "Serving The Servant." Goldberg says the chorus of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" pulls off a tricky balancing act. The song mocks the culture of mainstream arena rock while, at the same time, celebrating the joys of listening to your favorite underground band in a dimly lit club.

GOLDBERG: With the lights out, it's less dangerous. Here we are now; entertain us. It was rock 'n' roll and kind of an ironic commentary on rock 'n' roll at the same time. That was the genius of the song - is it combined a fierce commentary on shallowness while still having mass appeal musicality.

ROSE: Jennie Boddy says that's one of her favorite parts of the song.

BODDY: It's exactly what you feel. I feel stupid and contagious. And you just want to scream that. You're all in unison, just feeling the same way.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SMELLS LIKE TEEN SPIRIT")

NIRVANA: (Singing) I feel stupid and contagious. Here we are now. Entertain us.

ROSE: By the end of their time together, Nirvana's "Nevermind" had sold millions of copies. But the band had dropped "Smells Like Teen Spirit" from its live shows. Cobain openly worried that the band was attracting the kind of fans he would have hated in high school.

He championed feminism and gay rights. And he wrote this in the liner notes for one of Nirvana's albums - quote, "if any of you in any way hate homosexuals, people of different color or women, please do this one favor for us - leave us the [expletive] alone. Don't come to our shows, and don't buy our records," unquote.

POWERS: Kurt Cobain was always questioning his authority, questioning his masculinity.

ROSE: NPR Music's Ann Powers says that may be why "Smells Like Teen Spirit" still resonates, especially with teenagers.

POWERS: That experience of warring impulses and of ambivalence is the adolescent experience. It's exactly what teenagers go through when they are trying to come into their own authority and power but they're also questioning everything around them and questioning their own self-worth. Kurt Cobain captured that adolescent feeling better than anybody of his generation.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SMELLS LIKE TEEN SPIRIT")

NIRVANA: (Singing) Here we are now. Entertain us.

ROSE: It's been 25 years since Kurt Cobain took his own life at age 27. Powers says the tragedy of his death has also become part of how we hear "Smells Like Teen Spirit" today.

POWERS: It sort of intensifies its power and its message. And that, also, now is part of the meaning of the song.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SMELLS LIKE TEEN SPIRIT")

NIRVANA: (Singing) A denial, a denial, a denial...

ROSE: It's one more way the song has become an anthem for a generation that didn't want one.

Joel Rose, NPR News, New York.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SMELLS LIKE TEEN SPIRIT")

NIRVANA: (Singing) With the lights out, it's less dangerous. Here we are now. Entertain us.

KELLY: And we should note - just last week Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" hit another milestone. The music video hit 1 billion views on YouTube.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SMELLS LIKE TEEN SPIRIT")

NIRVANA: (Singing) A mulatto, an albino, a mosquito, my libido - yeah.

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