Many great songs have been inspired by an unlikely source, we suppose. Though, probably no other of them has been inspired by such an unlikely source, that is, a very girly brand of deodorant. Yes, the inspiration for the title of Nirvana’s biggest hit, “Smells Like Teen Spirit”, a powerful, angst-driven Rock anthem that shook an entire generation out of their decade long slumber of 80’s caricature-like rock stars, came from a cosmetic product named “Teen Spirit”.
At the time the band was very much still crafting their sound, preoccupied with their indentity, what they should and should not be doing as a band, with the biggest predicament being how to remain genuine, true to themselves as artists, while being able to appeal to the masses. Bringing a range of almost polar opposites together in the quest for their unique aesthetic – such as soft and hard, slow and fast, heavy but melodic and angry but poetic – they managed to achieve exactly what they set out to with their second album Nevermind, where “Smells Like Teen Spirit” was featured. Drawing influence from other great Rock bands that had preceded them, and although again almost polar opposites, Nirvana kind of became an amalgam of the Beatles and Black Sabbath, which is exactly what Kurt Cobain once said to his band mates jokingly, in order to explain what he was going for musically. Additionally, by using the slow-hard dynamic exploited massively at the time by The Pixies, another group Nirvana had been deeply influenced by, they put together one of the greatest Rock albums of all time.
As for the title of the album’s biggest hit, the story goes something like this. Kurt’s girlfriend at the time used a deodorant named “Teen Spirit”, triggering a mutual friend of theirs, Kathleen Hanna, to create a somewhat historic piece of graffiti as a prank. “So one night we went out and we were all fucked up. It was me and Kurt and Kathleen Hanna. Kathleen had some spray paint and she spray painted ‘Kurt smells like teen spirit’ in Kurt’s room,” Nirvana drummer and Foo Fighters lead vocalist and guitarist, Dave Grohl recalls.
A silly gesture that was made to tease Kurt, came to be a slogan for an entire generation.
