Beans (song)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| "Beans" | ||
|---|---|---|
 |
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| Song by Nirvana | ||
| from the album With the Lights Out | ||
| Released | November 23, 2004 | |
| Recorded | Summer 1988 | |
| Genre | Grunge | |
| Length | 1:32 | |
| Label | Geffen | |
| Writer(s) | Kurt Cobain | |
| Producer(s) | Jack Endino | |
| With the Lights Out track listing | ||
| Raunchola/Moby Dick (10 of disc 1) |
"Beans" (11 of disc 1) |
Don't Want It All (12 of disc 1) |
"Beans" is a song from the American rock band Nirvana, written by Nirvana's frontman, Kurt Cobain. The song was recorded in the Summer of 1988 as part of Cobain's "Mellow 4-track Shit" demo tape, which included early acoustic versions of songs such as "Sappy", "Polly", and "About a Girl".
The song is notable due to the high voice Cobain uses in the song. Cobain apparently used a pitch shifter for some of the voice effects, though he was capable of doing the high, squeaky voice by himself[1]. According to Michael Azerrad, the story behind the song is as follows:
Kurt had written a Vaselines-influenced song called 'Beans,' based on the Jack Kerouac book The Dharma Bums. 'Beans, beans, beans/ Jackie ate some beans/ And he was happy and naked in the woods' went the chorus. He wanted to put it on the upcoming album but Poneman didn't. 'He thought it was stupid,' says Kurt, who adds that the band wanted to be more diverse and experimental with their debut album, yet met with heavy resistance from Sub Pop, both stated and unstated. Since the band had no contract, they just didn't know how much they could ignore Poneman's wishes and still get to put their record out. 'Beans' was part of a four-song demo of 'weird, quirky songs' that the band wanted to include on the record. Says Kurt: '[Poneman] thought we were retarded.'
– Michael Azerrad, Come As You Are: The Story of Nirvana[1]
According to LiveNirvana.com, there is more than one edit of the song in circulation, though only one has been released officially, on Nirvana's 2004 box set With The Lights Out. This would explain the discrepancies between the lyrics described by Azerrad in his book, and the actual lyrics recorded on the With The Lights Out version of the song. (Which does not contain the verse, "And he was happy and naked in the woods', though this could be explained by Cobain simply recalling the lyrics from memory to Azerrad, and not actually playing the track for the author.) The lyrics of the box set version describe a man named Jackie, sitting naked and "eating beans and eating wine"[2]. The song also begins with Cobain having two characters converse, with one threatening the other ("I don't like you, and I'm going to beat you up!"). The other character then says he is going to go "tell his mom".
The song was seemingly abandoned after 1988, like much of the experimental material on the "Mellow 4-track Shit" demo ("Montage of Heck", etc). A few songs however, "Sappy", "Polly", and "About a Girl", were later re-worked and recorded for official release by Nirvana.
"Beans" was first leaked to the public on the Nirvana bootleg album Outcesticide III: The Final Solution, released by Blue Moon Records in 1995.
[edit] Notes
- ^ Azerrad, Michael: "Come As You Are: The Story of Nirvana". Doubleday, 1993
"Entry for 'Beans' on LiveNirvana.com", LiveNirvana.com.
