Lithium (Nirvana song)
"Lithium" | ||||
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Single by Nirvana | ||||
from the album Nevermind | ||||
B-side |
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Released | July 13, 1992 | |||
Recorded | May 1991 | |||
Studio | Sound City, Los Angeles | |||
Genre | ||||
Length | 4:16 | |||
Label | DGC | |||
Songwriter(s) | ||||
Producer(s) | ||||
Nirvana singles chronology | ||||
| ||||
Nevermind track listing | ||||
13 tracks
| ||||
Music video | ||||
"Lithium" on YouTube |
"Lithium" is a song by the American rock band Nirvana, written by vocalist and guitarist Kurt Cobain. It appears as the fifth track on the band's second album, Nevermind, released by DGC Records in September 1991.
In a 1992 interview with
"Lithium" was released as the third single from Nevermind in July 1992, peaking at number 64 on the US
Early history
Written in 1990, "Lithium" was debuted at a video session at the Evergreen State College's television studio in Olympia, Washington on March 20, 1990. The full session, which also included versions of three songs from the band's 1989 debut album, Bleach, was directed by Jon Snyder and conceived by Cobain as a potential video release.[6] It featured the band performing live while a montage of television footage taped by Cobain at home playing in the background. To date, no full songs from this session have been officially released by Nirvana's record company, although videos for "Lithium" and "School," edited by Snyder and featuring additional footage and still photos, appeared on two episodes of 1200 Seconds, a television show produced by Evergreen students. The episodes aired in the fall of 1990 on a local community access cable station.[7]
The song was added to Nirvana's setlist soon after, over a year before the release of Nevermind. Kim Thayil, guitarist of Seattle rock band Soundgarden, recalled hearing it for the first time during Nirvana's show at the Off Ramp Cafe in Seattle on November 25, 1990, saying that "when I heard 'Lithium,' it stuck in my mind. Ben, our bass player, came up to me and said, 'That's the hit. That's the Top 40 hit right there."[8]
In April 1990, "Lithium" was recorded by Butch Vig at Smart Studios in Madison, Wisconsin, during the recording sessions for what was intended to be a second album for the band's original label, Sub Pop.[9] However, the release was abandoned after the departure of drummer Chad Channing later that year, and the eight-song session was instead circulated as a demo tape, which helped generate interest with the band among major labels.[10]
On September 25, 1990, Cobain performed a solo acoustic version of the song on the Boy Meets Girl show, hosted by Calvin Johnson, on KAOS (FM) in Olympia, Washington.
Nevermind
"Lithium" was re-recorded by Vig in May 1991 at
The song's quiet verses and loud choruses dynamic also presented a challenge for Vig, who said that "getting the verses to sound relaxed and the chorus to sound as intense as possible, and make the transitions feel natural and effortless, was a hard one to do."
Post-Nevermind
"Lithium" was performed live at the
The final live version of "Lithium" was at Nirvana's last show, on March 1, 1994, at Terminal Einz in
Composition
Music
"Lithium" is an
The arrangement is representative of the musical style Nirvana had developed during work on Nevermind, alternating between quiet and loud sections.
Lyrics
According to Cobain, "Lithium" was "one of those songs I actually did finish while trying to write it instead of taking pieces of my poetry and other things".[26]
In his 1993 biography
In Come As You Are, Cobain acknowledged that the song might have been inspired in part by the time he spent living with his friend Jesse Reed and his
Release and reception
"Lithium" was released as the third single from Nevermind on July 13, 1992.
John Sullivan for
"Lithium" was ranked the 20th best single of the year in the
In 2012, NME ranked "Lithium" at number 52 on its list of the "100 Best Tracks Of The '90s".[36] In 2013, it was voted first "by a pretty comfortable margin" in Rolling Stone's reader's poll of "The 10 Best Nirvana Songs."[37] In 2019, the song was placed at number seven on Rolling Stone's ranking of 102 Nirvana songs.[38] In 2023, Stephen Thomas Erlewine ranked it fifth on the A.V. Club's "Essential Nirvana: Their 30 greatest songs, ranked" list.[39]
According to
Legacy
On April 10, 2014, "Lithium" was performed by surviving Nirvana members Grohl, Novoselic and
"Lithium" has been used as the goal song for Seattle's National Hockey League (NHL) team, the Seattle Kraken, since their inaugural season.[41][42]
Live promotional versions
Paradiso version
A live version of "Lithium," recorded at the
The Palace, Melbourne, version
In October 2021, another live version, recorded at
Reviewing the release for Rolling Stone, Kory Grow wrote that "the real magic in the box set manifests during the band's Melbourne, Australia, gig on Feb. 1, 1992. Cobain urges the crowd to sing along with him on 'Lithium' — a track that hadn't even come out as a single yet — and the audience nearly drowns him out, gleefully belting his lyrics about feeling simultaneously happy and ugly and not caring who knows it. Cobain sounds so into it, he forgot to kick on his distortion pedal for the song's primal 'yeah' chorus".[46]
Reading 1992 version
A live version of the song recorded during the band's headlining set at the Reading Festival in Reading, England, on August 30, 1992, was released as a promotional single from the album Live at Reading, released in November 2009. Video of this version first appeared on the 1994 home movie Live! Tonight! Sold Out!!, although the audio was previously unreleased. In the liner notes to From the Muddy Banks of the Wishkah, Novoselic wrote that "hearing tens of thousands of people sing along with [the Reading version of] 'Lithium' was a very cool moment in the history of the band."
Music video
The music video for "Lithium" was the second of four Nirvana videos directed by Kevin Kerslake, who had worked with the band on the video for their previous single, "Come as You Are," and later directed the videos for "In Bloom" and "Sliver."
The video featured a collage of live footage from the completed but then-unreleased home movie
Original concept
According to Azerrad in Come as You Are, Cobain's original idea for a "Lithium" video was an animated film about a girl who lived in a house in a forest. The story was to feature the girl, named Preggo, finding a pile of eggs in her closet and putting them in a train of three wagons that she would then wheel through the forest until arriving at a king's castle. By this time, all but one of the eggs have cracked, and she would place the remaining egg on a book on the lap of the king, asleep on his throne. The king would then awaken and open his legs, and the book would slide shut between them, crushing the egg. This concept was abandoned when Cobain and Kerslake learned that the animation would take four months to produce, and the live collage was made instead.[48] Azerrad wrote that while the final video was "enlivened by Kerslake's neat trick of using more violent footage during the quiet parts of the song and vice versa," it "was something of a disappointment from a band and a song that promised so much."[48]
Accolades
Year | Publication | Country | Accolade | Rank |
---|---|---|---|---|
1999 | Kerrang! | United Kingdom | 100 Greatest Rock Tracks Ever![52] | 20 |
2013 | Rolling Stone | United States | Readers’ Poll: The 10 Best Nirvana Songs[53] | 1 |
2023 | The A.V. Club | Essential Nirvana: Their 30 greatest songs, ranked[54] | 5 |
Track listings
All songs were written by Nirvana, except where noted.[3]
US 12-inch, cassette, CD, and UK 12-inch vinyl picture disc
- "Lithium" – 4:16
- "Been a Son" (live - Seattle - October 31, 1991) – 2:14
- "Curmudgeon" – 2:58
UK 7-inch vinyl and cassette
- "Lithium" – 4:16
- "Curmudgeon" – 2:58
UK CD
- "Lithium" – 4:16
- "Been a Son" (live) – 2:14
- "Curmudgeon" – 2:58
- "D-7" (John Peel Radio Session) (Greg Sage) – 3:45
Personnel
Personnel adapted from Nevermind liner notes[3]
Nirvana
- Kurt Cobain - vocals, guitar
- Krist Novoselic - bass guitar
- Dave Grohl - drums
Technical Personnel
- Butch Vig - producer, engineer
- Nirvana - producer, engineer
Charts
Weekly charts
|
Year-end charts
Decade-end charts
|
Certifications
Region | Certification | Certified units/sales |
---|---|---|
Australia (ARIA)[91] | 3× Platinum | 210,000‡ |
Denmark (IFPI Danmark)[92] | Gold | 45,000‡ |
Italy (FIMI)[93] Sales since 2009 |
Gold | 35,000‡ |
Spain (PROMUSICAE)[94] | Gold | 30,000‡ |
United Kingdom (BPI)[95] Sales since 2004 |
Platinum | 600,000‡ |
‡ Sales+streaming figures based on certification alone. |
Other releases
- The studio version recorded at Smart Studios in Madison in April 1990 was released in September 2011, when all eight songs recorded at the sessions appeared on disc two of the 20th-anniversary "Deluxe" and "Super Deluxe" versions of Nevermind.
- The solo acoustic version performed by Cobain on the Boy Meets Girl show in Olympia on September 25, 1990, appeared on the Nirvana box set, With the Lights Out, in November 2005. It was re-released on the compilation, Sliver: The Best of the Box, in November 2005.
- The 20th anniversary "Super Deluxe" version of Nevermind also featured early "Devonshire" mixes for most of the album, including "Lithium."
- A live version, recorded on October 31, 1991, at the Paramount Theatre in Seattle, Washington, appeared on Live at the Paramount, released on DVD and Blu-Ray in September 2011.
- A brief clip of the band performing the song live at the London, Englandon November 5, 1991, appears on Live! Tonight!! Sold Out!!. The clip, which appears immediately before the Reading version, features Cobain singing the opening lines of the song before stopping and telling the audience to wait while he starts over.
- Along with the Paradiso and Palace versions, two other live versions of "Lithium" appeared on the 30th anniversary "Super Deluxe" version of Nevermind, from the band's performances at Tokyo, Japanon February 19, 1992.
- A live version, recorded on December 13, 1993, at Live and Loud, released on DVD in September 2011. An edited version of the show, including "Lithium," was first broadcast on MTV, which filmed the concert, on December 31, 1993.
- Two live versions of "Lithium," from the band's shows at the Great Western Forum in Inglewood, California, on December 30, 1993, and at the Seattle Center Arena in Seattle, on January 7, 1994, will appear on the 30th anniversary "Super Deluxe" reissue of Nirvana's final studio album, In Utero, set to be released in October 2023.[96][97]
Cover versions
Cover versions of the song have been performed by choral rock band The Polyphonic Spree (which appeared in the 2015 film The Big Short), The Vaselines, Rockabye Baby! (as a lullaby), Man with a Mission and jazz quartet The Bad Plus.
A cover version by Bruce Lash appears in the 2008 comedy-drama film Marley & Me, starring Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston.[98][99][100][101]
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{{cite AV media notes}}
: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) (link) - ^ Kowalewski; Nunez, Al; Cake (May 1992). "An Interview With...Kurt Cobain". Flipside. Retrieved February 12, 2023.
{{cite news}}
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The sellout crowd of 17,151 roared. The goal horn sounded from a decommissioned Washington State Ferry. And then came the goal song, "Lithium" from the Seattle band Nirvana, the late Kurt Cobain crooning, "Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeaaah!"
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- uDiscover Music. Retrieved November 18, 2021.
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heavy
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Sources:
- Classic Albums—Nirvana: Nevermind [DVD]. Isis Productions, 2004.
- Azerrad, Michael (1994). Come As You Are: The Story of Nirvana. Doubleday. ISBN 0-385-47199-8.
- Berkenstadt, James; Cross, Charles R. (1998). Nirvana: Nevermind. Classic Rock Albums. ISBN 0-02-864775-0.
External links
- "Lithium" official music video on YouTube