Something in the Way

Describing the song as "sombre and disconsolate," American music journalist Gillian G. Garr wrote that "Something in the Way" "underscores the fact that Nirvana not only realized that emotions didn't always have to be expressed at the highest volume, they were also capable of pulling it off, with Cobain turning in one of his most expressive vocal performances."[11]

The Young Street Bridge, Aberdeen, Washington

Graffiti in memory of Kurt Cobain under the Young Street Bridge

"Something in the Way" was originally believed to be based on a period when Cobain was homeless and slept underneath the Young Street Bridge, close to his childhood home in his native town of Aberdeen, Washington.[9] While Cobain did run away from home as a teenager, the belief that he slept under the bridge was refuted by both Novoselic and Kurt's sister, Kim Cobain, in the 2001 Cobain biography, Heavier Than Heaven.[12] Both confirmed that Cobain "hung out" under the bridge, which was a popular recreation area favored by local teenagers, but Novoselic told author Charles R. Cross that the river's "tides" and "muddy banks" would have made staying there for a prolonged period of time impossible. Cross argued that the much larger Sixth Street Bridge, located about half-a-mile away, would have been more suitable to sleep under, but is unlikely to have been used by Cobain.[12]

According to Cross, the reality of Cobain's situation during his approximately four-month period of homelessness was "more poignant" than the version presented in "Something in the Way." At first, Cobain slept "curled up like a kitten" in a cardboard refrigerator box on the porch of Dale Crover, drummer of local band, the Melvins. After this, he would sleep in the hallways of old apartment buildings with central heating, leaving before the residents of the building left their apartments. Occasionally, he and a friend would watch television and sleep in the waiting room of Grays Harbor Hospital, with Cobain getting food from the cafeteria by charging it to invented room numbers.[12]

Cobain himself suggested that the song was not necessarily autobiographical, telling Nirvana biographer Michael Azerrad that the lyrics were "like if I was living under the bridge and I was dying of AIDS, if I was sick and I couldn't move and I was a total street person. That was kind of the fantasy of it".[13]

In Azzerad's 1993 biography Come as You Are: The Story of Nirvana, Cobain stated that he used to fish from the Wishkah River close to this bridge, which may have inspired the lyric, "Its okay to eat fish, cos' they don't have any feelings" in the song.[14]

In a 2021 Los Angeles Times interview, Cobain's widow, Courtney Love, called "Something in the Way" "one of the great rock songs of all time," and described it as Cobain "clawing his way out...He's telling himself anything just to get through." Love cited the line, "It's OK to eat fish cause they don't have any feelings" as the one that affected her the most deeply, saying, "He knows it's a lie — here's a guy who loved turtles — but he thinks that if someone just loves him enough, then maybe, just maybe one day he will become real." In regards to the song's fictionalized aspects, Love said that "the place [Cobain] writes from is so emotionally desperate we all understand it."[15]

According to American musician Nick Oliveri, some of the song's lyrics were contributed by Mark Lanegan, vocalist of Seattle rock band Screaming Trees, who later joined the band in which Oliveri played bass, Queens of the Stone Age, as an additional vocalist. In the 2023 book Lanegan, Oliveri recalled the event:

"Mark said he wrote some lyrics on "Something in the Way" with Kurt on Nevermind. But Kurt had played on some of Mark’s solo stuff, The Winding Sheet. So, instead of getting paid, they just did this thing where, 'Hey man, I added a lyric on your song and you added a lyric on my song. Let’s just call it even.'"

Oliveri told author Greg Prato that he remembered Lanegan "kicking himself in the butt a little bit about that" later on, knowing that "he would have had a lot of money" if he had received a songwriting credit on the song.[16]

In August 2020, the song reached number two on Billboard's US Rock Digital Songs Sales chart,[2] number five on their US Alternative Digital Songs Sales chart,[3] and number 45 on their all-genre Digital Song Sales chart,[2] as well as number 18 on Amazon Music's Best Sellers in Songs chart, and number 19 on iTunes' top 200 songs chart, after appearing in the first trailer for the film, The Batman.[4][21][6]

Streams of the song spiked by 1200% on Spotify shortly after the release of the film on March 4, 2022, helping it reach the top five of Spotify's Daily USA Top 50 songs ranking on March 8.[22] An article published by Variety on March 11 reported that the song was currently third on Spotify's daily list.[23] According to a March 15 Billboard article, the song earned 7.9 million on-demand official U.S. streams during the March 4 to March 10 tracking period, marking a 1,508% increase, and 3,100 downloads, a gain of 1,888%.[24] Interest in the song also helped boost sales of Nevermind, which climbed to number one on the Top Rock Albums and Top Alternative Albums charts.[24]

On the week of March 26, 2022, "Something in the Way" became the fifth Nirvana song to chart on the Billboard Hot 100, appearing at number 46 its one-week on the chart.[7]

American filmmaker Matt Reeves, writer and director of the 2022 film The Batman, revealed in a December 2021 interview with Gizmodo that listening to the song while writing the film's first act played a key role in helping him develop the character of Bruce Wayne. "Rather than make Bruce the playboy version we’ve seen before," Reeves explained, "there’s another version who had gone through a great tragedy and become a recluse. So I started making this connection to Gus Van Sant's Last Days, and the idea of this fictionalized version of Kurt Cobain being in this kind of decaying manor."[30][27]

In a March 2022 NME interview, American actor Paul Dano revealed that the song also influenced his portrayal of the film's villain, the Riddler. "Well, in the script Matt had actually mentioned ‘Something In The Way’ by Nirvana," Dano told interviewer Olly Richards. "So that right there, that song, those words, that refrain, became hugely important to me. Nirvana became a part of that [character]."[31]

The version featured in the film's August 2020 trailer is a remix of the Nevermind version by Alloy Tracks and Cavalry Music that incorporated themes by the film's composer Michael Giacchino and additional orchestral elements.[32][33]

The song itself appears twice in the film, serving as a bookend for the first and third acts.[34]

Following the theatrical release of the film in March 2022, audio streaming service Spotify reported a 1,200% increase in streams of the song on the platform,[22] while Billboard reported a 1,508% increase in official U.S. streams and 1,888% increase in downloads.[24] The song once again appeared on several Billboard charts, reaching number two on the Rock Streaming Songs and Rock Digital Song Sales chart, number four on the Alternative Digital Song Sales and Alternative Streaming Songs chart, number 20 on the Digital Song Sales chart, and number 27 on the Billboard Streaming Songs chart.[24][35]

American DJ Illenium remixed the song in collaboration with DC, following the success of the film.