Music can be very inconceivable and to hard to describe, thanks to its magical nature. To further this dilemma, many musicians create songs using diversified melodies and obscure lyrics, conveying the impression of their music having multiple meanings. In the song “Rape Me” by Nirvana, many people assume the song is about a woman being raped, but with subtle clues embedded in the lyrics, “Rape Me” could also have a deeper meaning. Released in December 1993, Nirvana’s Rape Me was written by Kurt Cobain on an acoustic guitar shortly after his album Nevermind was released. According to Universal Music Enterprises, Nevermind became Rolling Stone’s best album of the 90s, and landed a No. 17 spot on Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time
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Listening closely to the beginning of the song, the opening guitar sounds eerily similar to the opening guitar of everyone’s “favorite” Nirvana song, “Smells Like Teen Spirit”. The enormous amount of fame that came with “Smells Like Teen Spirit” heavily bothered Kurt Cobain, so the irony of a song called “Rape Me” sounding similar to “Smells Like Teen Spirit” is quite clear. At concerts following the release of Nevermind, if he was forced to play “Smells Like Teen Spirit”, he would deliberately jumble the lyrics, play the guitar badly, and at one concert in Reading, put the microphone in his mouth. (Berman) Cobain, who was known for his little tricks and jokes, might have just humored the media into thinking that “Rape Me” was a song solely intended to be known as an anti-rape song. With lyrics like: “Waste me/ I’m not the only one”(Cobain), one can assume that the media was “forcibly penetrating” Cobain, infiltrating his life, and forcing him to do certain things he did not want to do. What is also ironic is the title of this song, “Rape Me” which is actually self-cancelling, where rape would be impossible because the consent is given. Although this song can be taken literally as being an anti-rape song, it could also be seen as something deeper where Cobain voiced his problems about the
Listening closely to the beginning of the song, the opening guitar sounds eerily similar to the opening guitar of everyone’s “favorite” Nirvana song, “Smells Like Teen Spirit”. The enormous amount of fame that came with “Smells Like Teen Spirit” heavily bothered Kurt Cobain, so the irony of a song called “Rape Me” sounding similar to “Smells Like Teen Spirit” is quite clear. At concerts following the release of Nevermind, if he was forced to play “Smells Like Teen Spirit”, he would deliberately jumble the lyrics, play the guitar badly, and at one concert in Reading, put the microphone in his mouth. (Berman) Cobain, who was known for his little tricks and jokes, might have just humored the media into thinking that “Rape Me” was a song solely intended to be known as an anti-rape song. With lyrics like: “Waste me/ I’m not the only one”(Cobain), one can assume that the media was “forcibly penetrating” Cobain, infiltrating his life, and forcing him to do certain things he did not want to do. What is also ironic is the title of this song, “Rape Me” which is actually self-cancelling, where rape would be impossible because the consent is given. Although this song can be taken literally as being an anti-rape song, it could also be seen as something deeper where Cobain voiced his problems about the