WHAT Nirvana “Sliver”
WHEN Leicester - 15 June 1991
Just after I finished college I was living in a house with someone diagnosed with rapid cycling bipolar disorder. It turned into a year of self-harm, self-medication, attempted suicides and enforced hospitalisations.
"After dinner, I had ice cream
I fell asleep, and watched TV
I woke up in my mother’s arms
Grandma take me home
Never take me home
Grandma take me home
Wanna be alone"
At the end of 1990, “Sliver” was a goofy fun time Sub Pop single that gave a handful of us a two minute high. Its adolescent rush is the DNA of great noisy pop songs - "Can't Buy Me Love", "Teenage Kicks", "Song 2" - a breathless, giddy verse-chorus-verse memory firecracker.
By the end of the next summer, “Smells Like Teen Spirit” was a global Geffen commodity to over 10 million people (true story: I realised how far and fast Nirvana had gone two months later when I heard it coming out of a bedroom window next to the Tower of Pisa). The gear shift predictably ripped the guts out of it and less than three years later it was all over.
Where did all the good times go?