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Meaning
According to Chad Channing, Nirvana's drummer around the time of “Bleach”,
Cobain didn't have a title for the song when he first brought it into the
studio. When asked what it was about, Cobain replied, "It's about a girl."
The girl in question was Tracy Marander, Cobain's then-girlfriend, with whom he
lived at the time. Apparently, Marander had asked Cobain why he had never
written a song for her, and Cobain responded with "About a Girl." The song
addresses the couple's fractured relationship, caused by Cobain's refusal to get
a job, or to share cleaning duties at their apartment (which housed many of his
pets). During arguments on the subject, Cobain would occasionally threaten to
move into his car, at which point Marander would usually relent.
Strangely, Cobain never told Marander that he had written "About a Girl" for
her. In the 1998 Nick Broomfield documentary Kurt and Courtney, Marander
revealed that she only found out after reading Come as You Are: The Story of
Nirvana.
Other versions
A live, electric version of "About a Girl," recorded in 1990, appears as a
B-side on CD versions of the band's 1990 single for the song "Sliver".
Another live electric version, recorded in 1991, appears on the 1994 home video,
Live! Tonight! Sold Out!!. Another live version from Nirvana's show at the
Paradiso Club in Amsterdam on November 25, 1991 appears on the re-released
version of Live! Tonight! Sold Out!! which was re-released on DVD in 2006.
A solo acoustic demo version appears on the 2004 Nirvana box set, With the
Lights Out, and on the 2005 compilation album, Sliver: The Best of the Box. The
“Bleach” version was re-released in 2002 on the band's "best-of" compilation,
Nirvana.
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