Lost Nirvana Track Leaked To Radio & The Web
A studio version of the previously unreleased Nirvana song, “You Know You’re Right,” was broadcast Monday night and Tuesday morning (September 23 and 24) on influential modern rock station KROQ Los Angeles shortly after it surfaced on various websites.
“You Know You’re Right” is one of the last songs Nirvana singer-songwriter Kurt Cobain recorded before he died of a self-inflicted shotgun wound to the head in 1994. It will likely appear on a Nirvana greatest-hits package that, according to a recent Universal Music Group release schedule, is due out November 19. Although sources at Interscope/Geffen claimed that the album’s inclusion on the release schedule was a mistake, Cobain’s widow Courtney Love told radio host Howard Stern on Friday (September 20) that a Nirvana album will be released before Christmas. Love added that her lawsuits against Universal and surviving Nirvana members Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic have been settled.
As of press time a spokesperson for Nirvana had not returned calls inquiring about the source of the leak, and whether or not the label has sent out a cease-and-desist order to radio stations airing the track.
“You Know You’re Right” was initially to be included on a Nirvana boxed set that was due last Christmas, but was scrapped after Love sued to stop its release. Love and her manager-boyfriend Jim Barber felt that the Nirvana legacy would be better served by the release of a single-disc greatest-hits set before a boxed-set release.
“You Know You’re Right” was recorded in late January 1994, during the band’s final recording session in Seattle. In the track, Cobain sarcastically sings, “Things have never been so swell/And I have never been so well,” before wailing “pain” in the chorus. The song features the trademark Nirvana hard/soft dynamic that has been imitated by countless bands, including the Vines and Puddle Of Mudd.
A live version of the track has appeared on the Web and on bootlegs, and Love performed a version of the song with her band Hole during a taping of MTV’s Unplugged in 1995.
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