Jesus Don’t Want Me for a Sunbeam
On November 18, 1993, Nirvana, the seminal grunge band at the peak of their fame, recorded a concert at Sony Studios in New York City in front of a live audience. The set was adorned with black candles, stargazer lilies, and a chandelier, as requested by frontman Kurt Cobain. Producer Alex Coletti, already anxious about the performance, famously asked Cobain, “you mean, like a funeral?” to which Kurt replied, “Yes, exactly like a funeral.”
This added tension to an already apprehensive event. MTV Unplugged, which began airing in 1989, had been trying to persuade Nirvana to perform since their rapid rise to stardom. Known for their heavy grunge sound, Nirvana was hesitant to participate in the acoustic setting of the show. Drummer Dave Grohl later commented, “We’d seen the other Unpluggeds and didn’t like many of them because most bands would treat them like rock shows—play their hits like it was Madison Square Garden, except with acoustic guitars.” Nirvana aimed to defy expectations and showcase a different side of their music. After negotiations, the band agreed to perform on the condition that they had creative control, a decision MTV would regret in the days leading up to the event.
Nirvana had recently toured with the Meat Puppets, an Arizona alt-rock band. Instead of inviting big-name musicians like Eddie Vedder or Tori Amos, Cobain chose to bring Cris and Curt Kirkwood from the Meat Puppets for three covers of their tracks. The setlist excluded major Nirvana hits, opting for lesser-known songs and covers by artists like David Bowie, Lead Belly, and The Vaselines. This decision stemmed from the band’s concern that their popular hits wouldn’t translate well to acoustic renditions. Grohl later confirmed, “We knew we didn’t want to do an acoustic version of Teen Spirit. That would’ve been horrendously stupid. We felt it would be better if we found other songs.”
Kurt’s anxiety about playing acoustically, coupled with behind-the-scenes struggles, led to a rocky rehearsal period. Cobain blew off the last day of rehearsal after an argument with MTV execs over the direction of the concert. He was also reportedly going through heroin withdrawal. Beginning to spiral out he asked his friend, comedian Bobcat Goldthwait, to attend the rehearsals and the recording for moral support. Cobain told confidants that to ease his anxiety, he planned to get himself through the performance by taking Valium. MTV started bracing for a disaster of epic proportions.
However, when Nirvana took the stage with touring guitarist Pat Smear and cellist Lori Goldstein, the atmosphere shifted. Starting with the song “About A Girl”, Cobain, adept at self-deprecating sarcasm, can be heard making the comment the song was off their first record and “most people don’t own it”. The band’s unconventional song choices and stripped-down arrangements captivated the audience, showcasing a different side of Nirvana’s musical abilities. Despite initial concerns, the performance received critical acclaim and solidified Nirvana’s place in music history.
The taping featured a mix of originals and covers, with highlights including “On A Plain,” “Come as You Are,” and the Vaseline’s song “Jesus Wants Me For A Sunbeam”. The song was an ironic take on traditional Christian hymns that Kurt decided to change to “Jesus Doesn’t Want Me For A Sunbeam” switching the lyric’s affirmatives to negatives. The eccentricity of the performance is punctuated by bassist Krist Novoselic playing the accordion, a talent of his previously unseen.
Kurt’s emotional delivery and raw intensity on songs like “Pennyroyal Tea”, Meat Puppet’s cover “Lake of Fire”, and “Something in the Way” flabbergasted a stunned audience into silence. Then, of course, there was the haunting rendition of “The Man Who Sold the World”, an enigmatic folk/rock fusion by David Bowie whose cryptic lyrics suggest the illusion of power and control. It was a cover so good it’s eclipsed the original song in popularity.
Yet, their rendition of Lead Belly’s “Where Did You Sleep Last Night” was the pièce de résistance. Kurt performed the entire song with his eyes closed, his voice cracking in the final chorus from emotional exhaustion. At the very end of the song, Kurt paused and took in a deep breath. His eyes were closed, but he opened them wide as he breathed in a gasp of air. The result was a moment that could only be described as his soul seeping from his body. For Nirvana fans, it stands as one of the most raw and powerful images in music history. He had put all his emotion into the performance and it showed.
Give me a Leonard Cohen afterworld, so I can sigh eternally
Following Kurt Cobain’s tragic death in April 1994, the MTV Unplugged performance was released as an album, which went on to achieve major commercial success and critical acclaim. Originally, MTV only intended to release the performance as a video concert, but fears of bootlegging and its popularity from running on the MTV music channel forced them to make a deal with the surviving members of the band to release the recording as an album. Grohl and Novoselic planned to release the concert as the second disc of a two-disc live album titled Verse Chorus Verse, but following Kurt’s death, they found it too emotionally difficult to compile and edit the material.
Nearly seven months after Cobain’s death, it was released on November 1, 1994 as the standalone album Nirvana MTV Unplugged in New York. The remaining Verse Chorus Verse material released in 1996 as the live album From the Muddy Banks of the Wishkah. Unplugged’s introspective and stripped-down nature hinted at the direction the band might have taken in the future, a future that fans were denied and can only dream of now. While Kurt’s passing left a void in the music world, the legacy of Nirvana MTV Unplugged in New York remains a testament to the band’s talent and influence.
Thirty years later, the concert’s lasting impact and emotional resonance continues to echo in the hearts of those who loved their music, solidifying its place as one of rock ‘n’ roll’s most poignant and powerful performances. It showcased dimensions to Kurt’s abilities previously unknown. Perhaps most importantly of all, it gave fans a sense of closure. Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged in New York stands as a timeless tribute to a band that pushed boundaries and redefined the rock music landscape like no other has before or since.
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