Editor’s Note: This is the first installment of Mood Music — a feature in which I will deconstruct an album each month, analyzing it as it relates to the bipolar experience.
With his sky-blue Fender Mustang guitar and signature agonizing wail of a voice, Kurt Cobain shattered the bloated pop star and hair-metal-dominated ‘80s, ushering in a wave of punk and alternative rock. Cobain was a bipolar genius whose music was the soundtrack to my youth.
In Utero was the fourth and final album from Nirvana.
Fits of rage. Depression. Mania. Addiction. Angst. Low self-esteem. These are the essential ingredients of In Utero, an album that foreshadows Cobain’s suicide.
Look on the bright side suicide
Locked outside I’m on your side
Angel left wing, right wing, broken wing
Lack of iron and/or sleeping
Obituary birthday
Your scent is still here in my place of recovery
— “Milk It”
“Ahhhhhhhhh! Get away! Get away! Get away!” Cobain screams over and over and over on track two, “Scentless Apprentice.” Whether he’s rampaging about the trappings of fame or his own bipolar demons is up to interpretation. I think it’s a combination of both.
Imperfect musicianship was part of the appeal of the band. Nirvana wouldn’t be the same if it weren’t for their rough-around-the-edges sound. Feedback, beautiful feedback is all over this album, dissonance incarnate.
“What is wrong with me?” Cobain woefully repeats on “Radio Friendly Unit Shifter,” a song that is an eruption of said feedback.
“Tourette’s” takes a page from hardcore punk. The lyrics are indecipherable, fast, and angry (I had to look them up). Cobain rails against mean-spirited cold-heartedness.
“Milk It” just makes you want to grit your teeth. It’s textbook manic as all hell with its esoteric refrain of “Doll steak! Test meat!” in between crashes of distorted guitar riffs. Nonsensical or contradictory word pairings are a hallmark of mania, as seen in the lyric “obituary birthday.”
But it’s not all ranting and raving.
In another moody moment, Cobain sings, “I miss the comfort in being sad” on “Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge on Seattle” — musings from a bipolar soul. Depression can be comforting in that you don’t have to do anything but hurry up and wait. Or be taken care of by a loved one.
The verses of “Pennyroyal Tea” feature clean guitar while the choruses are dirty. Bassist Krist Novoselic once joked that the loud-quiet-loud motif was a rip-off of the Pixies. “I’m so tired I can’t sleep. I’m a liar and a thief.” This is a lyric that us bipolar individuals can identify with: the desperate desire to sleep when you can’t because, ironically, you’re tired.
“I think I’m dumb. I think I’m dumb. I think I’m dumb,” Cobain laments in the aptly named song “Dumb.” He also talks about addiction. “We float around and hang out on clouds, then we come down and have a hangover,” he sings softly.
But the crown jewel of this album is “All Apologies,” the bright and beautiful closing track in which Kurt seems to apologize for his future suicide.
If you need to blow off some emotional steam, throw In Utero on the turntable. It’s not only Nirvana at its moodiest but also one of the greatest rock records of all time.
