There’s no artist in the world that has released something that they aren’t proud of. Unless you’re someone like Gene Simmons and seem to have some of the greatest self-confidence in the world, there are always going to be times when a song either doesn’t pan out or is made just to fulfil a contract to a label. Kurt Cobain usually wasn’t one to play along with what the higher-ups had to say, but while he liked the idea of writing a song like ‘Rape Me’, he was pissed that he had to write it in the first place.
And it’s not like the label was exactly thrilled to have the song on their roster, either. Nirvana were already starting to become one of the biggest artists in the world, so to have a song that has allusions to sexual assault was probably not going to be anyone’s first choice of single, despite it actually being pretty catchy.
In fact, it’s probably one of the better songs on In Utero. Sure, the chords are a blatant recycling of ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ put together in a different order, but that was all by design for fans to have the rug pulled out from under them once they listened to what the lyrics had to say.
If anyone had been following Nirvana for long, though, everything out of Cobain’s mouth was meant to be a little bit satirical. He had been a firm advocate for women’s rights ever since he started writing tunes, and everything from ‘Sappy’ to ‘Polly’ was all about putting a spotlight on why gender equality and the need to stop sexual assault was so important.
So when listening to this kind of song, Cobain’s not claiming that he wants to be sexually assaulted for pleasure. If anything, it’s more of a commentary on how much the practice is commonly done in society and wanting to take the brunt of that emotional scarring away from those who have been wronged in the past.
Still, Cobain did feel a little bit conflicted about including it on the record, saying, “Having to resort to doing something like that is almost embarrassing because people didn’t understand when we a song like ‘About a Girl’ or ‘Polly’. And having to explain that, and having misunderstandings about it. I decided to write ‘Rape Me’ in a way so blunt and obvious that no one could deny it, and no one could read into it any other way.”
It may seem frustrating having to be that blunt and honest in a song, but sometimes getting straight to the point is a better move than trying to tiptoe around the subject. Half of ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ is about Cobain’s inability to articulate what he’s trying to say, so this was him just trying to be as straight-ahead as he possibly could.
It also probably didn’t hurt that he was able to pull a fast one on some of his higher-ups as well, eventually playing a snippet of the song during their appearance on the MTV Awards after the programmers told him not to do it. Yeah, a song with that title is certainly going to drum up some controversy, but while the label insisted on changing the title to ‘Waif Me’ on some pressings, they fundamentally misunderstood what Nirvana were all about.