Nirvana - Something in the Way
“Something in the Way” is a haunting song by American rock band Nirvana, written by vocalist and guitarist Kurt Cobain. It is the 12th song on their second album, Nevermind, released in September 1991. Kurt Cobain penned the song in 1990, several months before Nirvana headed to Southern California to work on their sophomore LP. The song features minimal instrumentation with a distinctive melancholy atmosphere. Nirvana used a cello on this song, which was played by their Los Angeles-based friend Kirk Canning. When recording this song, Kurt Cobain whispered his vocals so quietly that producer Butch Vig had to turn his recording levels all the way up. Producer Butch Vig recalled that Cobain “sang so quietly, almost in a whisper, that you could hear a pin drop,” and they recorded the vocal and acoustic in the control room in three takes on the couch.
The song’s lyrics are inspired by themes of homelessness and desperation, though the autobiographical details have been debated. Cobain claimed he lived under a bridge in Aberdeen, Washington, after being kicked out of his home, though biographers have questioned the literal accuracy of this story. Cobain himself suggested that the song was not necessarily autobiographical, telling Nirvana biographer Michael Azerrad that the lyrics were “like if I was living under the bridge and I was dying of AIDS, if I was sick and I couldn’t move and I was a total street person.” In a 2021 Los Angeles Times interview, Cobain’s widow, Courtney Love, called “Something in the Way” “one of the great rock songs of all time,” and described it as Cobain “clawing his way out…He’s telling himself anything just to get through.”
Despite never being released as a single and rarely appearing in the band’s live setlists, “Something in the Way” experienced a remarkable resurgence decades after its release. The song charted for the first time in August 2020, after appearing in the first trailer for the 2022 superhero film, The Batman. Director Matt Reeves recalled to Empire, “When I write, I listen to music, and as I was writing the first act, I put on Nirvana’s ‘Something in the Way’.” Streams of the song spiked by 1200% on Spotify shortly after the release of the film on March 4, 2022, helping it reach the top five of Spotify’s Daily USA Top 50 songs ranking on March 8. On the week of March 26, 2022, “Something in the Way” became the fifth Nirvana song to chart on the Billboard Hot 100, appearing at number 46 its one-week stay on the chart. The song also gained recognition in a 2014 study that analyzed musical elements of sadness, with researcher Grimaud’s analysis showing that Nirvana’s “Something in the Way” topped the list of the saddest songs ever.
Nirvana Something in the Way Lyrics
Underneath the bridge, tarp has sprung a leak
And the animals I've trapped have all become my pets
And I'm living off of grass, and the drippings from my ceiling
It's okay to eat fish 'cause they don't have any feelings
Something in the way, hmm-mmm
Something in the way, yeah, hmm-mmm
Something in the way, hmm-mmm
Something in the way, yeah, hmm-mmm
Something in the way, hmm-mmm
Something in the way, yeah, hmm-mmm
Underneath the bridge, tarp has sprung a leak
And the animals I've trapped have all become my pets
And I'm living off of grass, and the drippings from my ceiling
It's okay to eat fish 'cause they don't have any feelings
Something in the way, hmm-mmm
Something in the way, yeah, hmm-mmm
Something in the way, hmm-mmm
Something in the way, yeah, hmm-mmm
Something in the way, hmm-mmm
Something in the way, yeah, hmm-mmm
Something in the way, hmm-mmm
Something in the way, yeah, hmm-mmm