Scentless Apprentice

"Scentless Apprentice"
Song by Nirvana
from the album In Utero
Released September 21, 1993
Recorded February 12–26, 1993
Studio Pachyderm Studio, Cannon Falls, Minnesota, United States
Genre Noise rock
Length 3:48
Label DGC
Songwriter(s) Kurt Cobain, Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic
Producer(s) Steve Albini
In Utero track listing
13 tracks
  1. "Serve the Servants"
  2. "Scentless Apprentice"
  3. "Heart-Shaped Box"
  4. "Rape Me"
  5. "Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge on Seattle"
  6. "Dumb"
  7. "Very Ape"
  8. "Milk It"
  9. "Pennyroyal Tea"
  10. "Radio Friendly Unit Shifter"
  11. "tourette's"
  12. "All Apologies"
  13. "Gallons of Rubbing Alcohol Flow Through the Strip"

Scentless Apprentice is a song by American rock band, Nirvana, written by vocalist and guitarist Kurt Cobain, bassist Krist Novoselic, and drummer Dave Grohl. It is the second track on their third and final studio album In Utero, released in September 1993.

Origin and recording

"Scentless Apprentice" was written during a band rehearsal in 1992. Unlike with most Nirvana songs, the guitar riff was written by Grohl, rather than Cobain. "It was such a cliché grunge Tad riff that I was reluctant to even jam on it," Cobain told Michael Azerrad, in the 1993 Nirvana biography, Come As You Are: The Story of Nirvana.[1] "But I decided to write a song with that just to make [Grohl] feel better, to tell you the truth, and it turned out really cool."[2] Cobain added the descending guitar riff played over the main riff and arranged the song, while Novoselic helped compose the song's second section. "I think most of the reason that song sounds good is because of the singing style and the guitar parts I do over the top of the basic rhythm," Cobain told Azerrad, "But hell, that was great."[3] It is the only song on In Utero on which all three band members received songwriting credits.[4]

The earliest known recording is a boombox-recorded rehearsal demo, over nine minutes long, that was released on the posthumous Nirvana box set, With the Lights Out, in 2004.[5] The song was first recorded in the studio by Craig Montgomery at BMG-Ariola studios in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in January 1993.[5] This demo version was closer in duration and structure to the finished version of the song, although Cobain made no attempt to sing proper lyrics on it.[5] The song was debuted live shortly before this version was recorded, on January 16, 1993 at the Hollywood Rock Festival in São Paulo, Brazil, and performed again shortly after, on January 23, 1993 at the Hollywood Rock Festival in Rio de Janeiro.[5] Although the song's structure had been trimmed by that point, as evidenced by the studio version, the latter of these performances still developed into an extended jam that lasted nearly 20 minutes.[5] During this performance, Cobain spat into the lenses of the TV cameras filming the show,[6][7], and also exposed himself to one of the cameras, in a sequence that Cobain referred to as "the penis and flower petal face in camera performance piece" in the posthumously-released Journals.[8] Footage of this part of the performance appears in the 1994 home video, Live! Tonight! Sold Out!!.

The final studio version of "Scentless Apprentice" was recorded by Steve Albini in February 1993, at Pachyderm Studios in Cannon Falls, Minnesota. This version was released on the band's third and final studio album, In Utero, in September 1993. The song was recorded on February 13, the first day of the In Utero sessions, under the working title "Chuck Chuck Fo Fuck," a reference to the rhythm of the guitar riff.[9] According to Albini, Cobain recorded two vocal takes for the song: one main vocal take, and a second "where Kurt was just singing parts of the song to emphasize them or parts of the song with a different sound quality."[10]

Lyrics and composition

The song is based on the 1985 novel Perfume, by German writer, Patrick Süskind.[4] The novel is set in France in the eighteenth century and tells the story of a bastard who is born with two notable characteristics - he has an amazing sense of smell which he uses to access the world around him, but he himself gives off no odor of any kind from his body.[4] He is reluctantly cared for in an orphanage by nurses who think he is devil-spawned but he eventually becomes an apprentice to a master perfume maker.[4] Cobain hadn't originally intended to turn his reading of the book into a song, but the need for strong lyrics arose when the band collaborated in writing a song together from square one.[4]

Release and reception

Cobain was pleased with the recording, telling Spin in a 1993 interview that the band wanted to release the song as the album's second single, following "Heart-Shaped Box."[11] Ultimately, no single was ever released for the song before Cobain's death in April 1994, with "All Apologies" and "Rape Me" released as double a-sides as the album's second single instead. However, as well as appearing as the second track on the In Utero album, the song also appeared on the CD Strung Out released by Guitar World in a joint promotion with DGC in 1993.[12][13] It also appeared on the promo cassette Concrete Music Bloc - Volume III, released by the heavy metal record label Concrete Corner in 1993[14]

Albini was also impressed with the song, citing it and the In Utero track "Milk It as "the two that struck me as the biggest step for the band," because they represented "the biggest break" from the band's more melodic material, and "the most adventurous sonically" songs on the album.[15]

In 2015 Rolling Stone ranked "Scentless Apprentice" at number 24 in their list of the top 102 Nirvana songs.[16] In a poll conducted by Louder Sound in May 2018, "Scentless Apprentice" was voted by readers as the twenty-third best Nirvana song.[17]

Recording and release history

Demo and studio versions

Date recorded Studio Producer/recorder Releases Personnel
Winter, 1992 Cobain residence, Seattle, US Nirvana With the Lights Out (2004)
January 19–21, 1993 Ariola Ltda BMG, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Craig Montgomery In Utero (deluxe) (2013)
  • Kurt Cobain: vocals, guitar
  • Krist Novoselic: bass guitar
  • Dave Grohl: drums
February 12–26, 1993 Pachyderm Studio, Cannon Falls, Minnesota, US Steve Albini In Utero (1993)
  • Kurt Cobain: vocals, guitar
  • Krist Novoselic: bass guitar
  • Dave Grohl: drums

Live versions

Date recorded Venue Releases Personnel
December 13, 1993 Pier 48, Seattle, Washington From the Muddy Banks of the Wishkah (1996)
Live and Loud (2013)
In Utero (super deluxe) (2013)
  • Kurt Cobain: vocals, guitar
  • Krist Novoselic: bass guitar
  • Dave Grohl: drums
  • Pat Smear: guitar


References

  1. ↑ Azerrad, Michael (1994). Come As You Are: The Story of Nirvana. Doubleday. p. 324. ISBN 0-385-47199-8.
  2. ↑ Azerrad, Michael (1994). Come As You Are: The Story of Nirvana. Doubleday. p. 324. ISBN 0-385-47199-8.
  3. ↑ Azerrad, Michael (1994). Come As You Are: The Story of Nirvana. Doubleday. p. 324. ISBN 0-385-47199-8.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 Crisafulli, Chuck (1996). Teen Spirit: The Stories Behind Every Nirvana Song. London: Omnibus Press. pp. 84–85. ISBN 0711958092.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 Gaar, Gillian G (2006). Nirvana's In Utero. United States: Bloomsbury Publishing USA. pp. 26–27. Retrieved August 27, 2018.
  6. ↑ Gaar, Gillian G (2009). The Rough Guide to Nirvana. United States: Dorling Kindersley Ltd. p. 98. Retrieved August 22, 2018.
  7. ↑ Nirvana - Scentless Apprentice (LIVE Brazil, 1993). Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: YouTube. January 23, 1993. Retrieved August 22, 2018.
  8. ↑ Cobain, Kurt. "Journals". Published in 2002 by Riverhead Books. ISBN 978-1-57322-232-7.
  9. ↑ Gaar, Gillian G. (2006). In Utero. United States: Continium. p. 42. ISBN 0-8264-1776-0.
  10. ↑ Gaar, Gillian G. (2006). In Utero. United States: Continium. p. 45. ISBN 0-8264-1776-0.
  11. ↑ "Spin mgazine- The Nirvana Wars". Spin. SPIN Media LLC. June 2002. Retrieved August 17, 2018.
  12. ↑ "Strung Out". www.livenirvana.com. Retrieved 17 August 2018.
  13. ↑ Nirvana, In Utero - Super Deluxe Edition - linear notes (2013).
  14. ↑ "Concrete Corner: Concrete Music Bloc (Volume III, September 1993)". www.livenirvana.com. Retrieved 18 August 2018.
  15. ↑ Gaar, Gillian G. (2006). In Utero. United States: Continium. p. 44. ISBN 0-8264-1776-0.
  16. ↑ "No Apologies: All 102 nirvana songs ranked". rollingstone.com. Retrieved 17 August 2018.
  17. ↑ "The 30 best Nirvana songs of all time". loudersound.com. Retrieved 17 August 2018.
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