In Bloom

According to Nirvana's bassist Krist Novoselic, "In Bloom" "originally sounded like a Bad Brains song," before being slowed down and reworked by Cobain at home.[2][3] In a 2002 Rolling Stone interview with David Fricke, Novoselic recalled that Cobain "went home and [he] hammered it. He kept working on it. Then he called me on the phone and said, 'Listen to this song.' He started singing it on the phone. You could hear the guitar. It was the 'In Bloom' of Nevermind, more of a pop thing."[4]

The song was first performed live on April 1, 1990 at the Cabaret Metro in Chicago. The following day, the band began work on recording a new release for their then-label Sub Pop, at Smart Studios in Madison, Wisconsin with producer Butch Vig.[5] Among the eight songs recorded during the five-day session was "In Bloom," which originally featured a bridge that Vig removed by physically cutting it out of the 16-track master tape with a razor blade, and throwing in the garbage.[2] The original plan of releasing the songs recorded during this session on a single release were abandoned later in the year, after the exit of drummer Chad Channing. The band instead used the material as a demo tape, which circulated amongst the music industry and generated interest in the group among major record labels.[6] However, a few songs from the session still appeared on various official releases in 1990 and 1991. "In Bloom" was released as a music video only, on the Sub Pop Video Network Volume 1 VHS compilation in 1991.

The song was re-recorded by Vig at Sound City Studios in Van Nuys, California in May 1991, during the sessions for the band's second album and major label debut, Nevermind. It was one of the first songs worked on during the sessions, due to Vig's familiarity with it from his previous session with the band.[7] Like the other songs recorded at Smart Studios, the arrangement for "In Bloom" was left mostly unchanged, with the band's new drummer Dave Grohl staying close to what Channing had played.[8]

According to Vig, Cobain's impatience with recording multiple vocal takes made it difficult to acquire a master vocal take. In the 2005 documentary Classic Albums: Nirvana – Nevermind, Vig revealed the methods he used to get Cobain to record multiple takes, which included tricking him into believing that certain parts were not properly recorded and needed to be done again, and reminding him that the Beatles' John Lennon double-tracked his vocals in the studio.[7] The varying intensity of Cobain's vocals from one take to the next, and from the verses to the choruses, also presented a problem for Vig, who had to adjust the input levels "on the fly" while recording Cobain.[9] Ultimately, Vig was able to edit several takes together into a single master, due to the consistency of Cobain's vocal phrasing.[9]

Vig also decided to have Grohl sing high harmonies, double-tracking them as he did with Cobain's. Grohl initially had difficulty hitting the proper notes, but ultimately was able to sing what Vig wanted.[10] The original studio version of "In Bloom" featured no harmonies, possibly due to time constraints.[11]

"In Bloom" was performed for the final time live on March 1, 1994 at Terminal Einz in Munich, Germany, Nirvana's last show.

Like many Nirvana songs, "In Bloom" shifts back and forth between quiet verses and loud choruses. Cobain uses a Mesa Boogie guitar amplifier for the verses, and during the chorus he switches to a Fender Bassman amp (suggested by Vig) for a heavier, double-tracked fuzztone sound.[9] The rhythm section of Novoselic and Grohl kept its parts simple; Grohl stated it was "an unspoken rule" to avoid unnecessary drum fills, while Novoselic said he felt his role was about "serving the song".[7] During the choruses, vocalist Cobain and drummer Grohl harmonize while singing "He's the one/Who likes all our pretty songs/And he likes to sing along/And he likes to shoot his gun/But he knows not what it means". The song's intro reappears at the end of each chorus.

According to the 1993 Nirvana biography Come As You Are by Michael Azerrad, "In Bloom" was originally written about "the jocks and shallow mainstream types" of the underground music scene the band began to find in their audience after the release of their 1989 debut album, Bleach. As Azerrad points out, the song's lyrics "translated even better to the mass popularity the band enjoyed" following the breakthrough success of their second album, Nevermind.[12] "The brilliant irony," Azerrad wrote, "is that the tune is so catchy that millions of people actually do sing along to it."[12] English journalist Everett True suggested the song may also have addressed the band's discomfort with being part of the grunge movement of the early 1990s, saying that "I assumed it was directed towards the fans who would show up at concerts with signs saying Even Flow [a Pearl Jam song] on one side and Rape Me – I think – on the other: the fans who did not understand there was a point of difference between Nirvana and other Seattle bands or media representations of grunge. I've always associated the song with [In Utero single] Rape Me. Like they're a pair."[3]

In his biography of Cobain, Heavier Than Heaven, Charles R. Cross asserted that the song was a "thinly disguised portrait" of Cobain's friend Dylan Carlson.[13]

In 2011, Rolling Stone magazine ranked "In Bloom" at number 415 on their list of the "500 Greatest Songs of All Time".[20] In 2019, they ranked the song number two on their ranking of 102 Nirvana songs.[21] According to Nielsen Music's year-end report for 2019, "In Bloom" was the seventh most-played song of the decade on mainstream rock radio with 131,000 spins. All of the songs in the top 10 were from the 1990s.[22]

In 2019, Cobain was given a songwriting credit on the single "Panini" by American rapper and singer Lil Nas X, due to the song having a similar chorus melody as "In Bloom". As Nas X explained in a SiriusXM interview, "I put out the snippet [of 'Panini'] and everyone was like, 'Wow, he's sampling Nirvana.' I was like, 'Where? I'm not sampling Nirvana, this beat doesn't have Nirvana in it.' Then, I listened to 'In Bloom' in full, and I was like, 'Oh, okay.'" Nas X revealed that the song was approved by Kurt's daughter, Frances Bean Cobain, and that the experience "actually got me into [Nevermind] for the first time."[23]

In a 2021 interview with the Los Angeles Times, Cobain's widow, Courtney Love, said she was "very firmly in the club that says ‘In Bloom’ should have been the first single" from Nevermind, calling it "a far better song" than "Smells Like Teen Spirit."[24]

The first music video for "In Bloom", for the Smart Studios version, was directed by Steve Brown, and filmed in New York City in April 1990, shortly after the song had been recorded. It features footage of the band walking around lower Manhattan, including the South Street Seaport, the Lower East Side, and Wall Street, as well as rehearsal footage and clips from the band's show at Maxwell's in Hoboken, New Jersey on April 28. Novoselic had shaved his head as punishment for what he perceived to be a bad performance at the Pyramid Club in New York City on April 26, and appears with hair in some shots, and with a shaved head in others.[25]

The video was first released in 1991 on the Sub Pop Video Network Volume 1 compilation. It was re-released on the DVD of the band's rarities box set, With the Lights Out, in November 2004. The audio of this version appeared on some copies of the promotional EP, Selections from With the Lights Out, which was released shortly before the box set, but not on the box set itself. It did not appear on a commercial release until the full Smart session was included on disc two of the 20th anniversary "Deluxe" and "Super Deluxe" versions of Nevermind in September 2011.

The video is listed as Alternate Version on Nirvana's official YouTube channel.

The second music video for "In Bloom", for the Nevermind version, was directed by Kevin Kerslake, who had directed the videos for the band's previous two singles from album Nevermind, "Come as You Are" and "Lithium". The video was first aired in late November 1992, about a month after it was filmed.[26] According to Come As You Are, Cobain's original concept for the video was "a surrealistic fable about a little girl who is born into a Ku Klux Klan family and one day realizes how evil her parents are."[26] This proved to be "too ambitious," so Cobain instead came up with the idea of making a video that parodied the musical performances of bands on early 1960s variety shows, such as The Ed Sullivan Show.[26]

The video was filmed on old Kinescope cameras, following Cobain's request that Kerslake use authentic cameras from the period, and the band's performance was improvised.[26] The satirical tone was a result of Cobain being "so tired for the last year of people taking us so seriously . . . I wanted to fuck off and show them that we have a humorous side to us".[27] The video begins with an unnamed variety show host, played by Doug Llewelyn, former host of American reality show The People's Court, introducing Nirvana to an in-studio crowd of young fans, whose screaming is heard throughout the duration of the song. The band members, whom the host refers to as "thoroughly all right and decent fellas," perform dressed in suits, while Cobain wears glasses that made him dizzy.[28] As Cobain explained in a 1992 Melody Maker interview, "We wanted to be like The Beatles – no, The Dave Clark Five, I was wearing glasses – we would never make fun of The Beatles."[29][30] Novoselic had cut his hair short for the video, and liked it so much he kept it that way afterwards.[28] As the video progresses, the band destroys the set and its instruments.

Three edits of the Kerslake video were made. Cobain wanted MTV to first play the first edit, featuring the band in suits only, and eventually replace it with a second edit featuring the band wearing dresses and performing in their traditional manner, which included destroying the set. However, Cobain was skeptical that MTV's alternative rock show 120 Minutes, which insisted on premiering the video, would properly convey the humor of the "pop idol" version. As a result, the familiar third edit was produced which contained shots of the band in both suits and dresses. The original edit of the video never aired.[31]

The "In Bloom" music video won the award for Best Alternative Video at the 1993 MTV Video Music Awards,[32] and topped the music video category in the 1992 Village Voice Pazz & Jop critics' poll.[33]

• Classic Albums—Nirvana: Nevermind [DVD]. Isis Productions, 2004.
• Azerrad, Michael. Come as You Are: The Story of Nirvana. Doubleday, 1994. ISBN 0-385-47199-8
• Berkenstadt, Jim; Cross, Charles. Classic Rock Albums: Nevermind. Schirmer, 1998. ISBN 0-02-864775-0
• Cross, Charles R. Heavier Than Heaven: A Biography of Kurt Cobain. Hyperion, 2001. ISBN 0-7868-6505-9