Here we are now: The making of Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit

The phrase “anthem for a generation” is a tired cliche – yet in the case of Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit, it seems almost justified. The story behind the track’s creation mixes genius, hard work and moments of serendipity. It was a song Kurt Cobain worried sounded like a fledgling rock tune of the 1950s, an AOR favourite from the 1970s and an alternative rock act from the 1980s. But ultimately, it sounded like nothing else.
The genesis of Smells Like Teen Spirit can be traced back to Nirvana’s attempts to follow up their debut album, Bleach. Seeking a more developed sound, lead singer and guitarist Cobain aimed to craft what he called “the ultimate pop song.” He wanted to capture the dynamics he admired in Pixies’ music—shifting from soft and quiet moments to powerful, loud bursts.
He later said: “I was basically trying to rip off the Pixies. I have to admit it. When I heard the Pixies for the first time, I connected with that band so heavily that I should have been in that band—or at least a Pixies cover band. We used their sense of dynamics, being soft and quiet and then loud and hard.
Cobain’s vision for the song started to take shape a few weeks before sessions with producer Butch Vig for their second album, Nevermind, in 1991. He presented his bandmates with a raw version of the song, featuring just the main guitar riff and the chorus vocal melody. Despite the initial scepticism from bassist Krist Novoselic, who deemed the riff “ridiculous,” Cobain persisted.
Novoselic remembered: “We were just playing the chorus, ‘When the light’s out, and it’s dangerous, here we are now,’ over and over again. I said, ‘Wait a minute. Why don’t we just kind of slow this down a bit?’ So I started playing the verse part. And Dave started playing a drum beat.”
The song’s title, Smells Like Teen Spirit, emerged from a phrase Cobain discovered on his bedroom wall. After a night out in which he and Kathleen Hanna, leader of riot-grrrl band Bikini Kill, shared a bottle of Canadian Club whisky before daubing “Fake Abortion Clinic, Everyone” and “God is Gay” in six-foot red letters on a teen pregnancy centre, the pair returned to Cobain’s apartment where Hanna wrote “Kurt Smells Like Teen Spirit” on Cobain’s bedroom wall before passing out.
Thinking it a comment on his revolutionary zeal, Cobain later told biographer Michael Azerrad “I took that as a compliment. I thought that was a reaction to the conversation we were having but it really meant that I smelled like the deodorant. I didn’t know that the deodorant spray existed until months after the single came out. I’ve never worn any cologne or underarm deodorant.”
Hanna was referring to a deodorant she and Cobain’s then-girlfriend, Tobi Vail, had come across during a grocery store visit. As the band prepared to record their album, they sent demos to Vig. Although the sound was distorted due to the band’s high volume, Vig recognised the potential of Teen Spirit – though Cobain still worried that it sounded like Louie Louie by The Kingsmen or More Than A Feeling by Boston.
It also sounded very much like Pixies, with Grohl later admitting: “I really remember thinking, ‘That is such a Pixies rip’. It was almost thrown away at one point because it just seemed too much like the Pixies.”
The song’s impact was immediate. Smells Like Teen Spirit made its live debut on April 17, 1991, at Seattle’s OK Hotel in a gig which helped the band make enough money for the petrol to get them from Seattle to Van Nuys, LA, for recording. Less than five months later, on September 10, it was released as a single.
The recording process took place at Sound City Studios in Los Angeles in May 1991. Vig’s guidance led to changes in the arrangement, such as moving a guitar ad lib to the chorus and shortening it. The band recorded the basic track in three takes, with the second take being the chosen one.
During the recording, Vig corrected timing errors caused by Cobain’s use of guitar effects pedals. Cobain’s distinctive vocal style was captured in only three takes, showcasing his raw emotion. The result was a masterpiece that captured the essence of Cobain’s vision and the band’s collaborative spirit.
Smells Like Teen Spirit features a distinctive grunge sound, with its main powerful guitar riff built from four power chords played in a syncopated rhythm. The song’s structure includes shifts in volume and dynamics, a characteristic Pixies-style quiet-loud-quiet pattern. The lyrics, characterised by Cobain’s slurred delivery, left listeners puzzled.
Though the famous line “Here we are now, entertain us” was already in place – it was a regular Cobain icebreaker, used when he entered a party – other lyrics came and went before recording, including some aimed at his ex-girlfriend Tobi Vail, who remains in the finished article as “over-bored and self-assured.”
Novoselic said of the final version of Cobain’s lyrics: “I checked them out and said, ‘I think they’re pretty cool,’ But then he seemed disappointed that I wasn’t just raving about them. But the thing was that I just didn’t get them the first time I read them. And then I started listening to it in the song format, and then I had an idea of what he was talking about. He was talking about kids, commercials, Generation X, the youth bandwagon, and how he’s really disappointed in it, and how he doesn’t want anything to do with it.”
Now, Smells Like Teen Spirit is more than just a song – it’s a testament to Nirvana’s sheer power, Vig’s craft and a troubled genius’s ability to not only spot a decisive cultural shift, but to recognise that it was already being commoditised into extinction.