Do Re Mi (Nirvana song)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Do Re Mi"

Song by Nirvana
from the album With the Lights Out
Released	November 23, 2004
Recorded	March 1994
Genre	Grunge
Length	4:24
Label	Geffen
Writer(s)	Kurt Cobain
With the Lights Out track listing
Jesus Doesn't Want Me for a Sunbeam (15 of disc 3)	"Do Re Mi" (16 of disc 3)	You Know You're Right (17 of disc 3)

"Do Re Mi" is a song by Kurt Cobain, lead singer and guitarist of the American rock band Nirvana. It is believed to be the last song he wrote before his death in April 1994.

An acoustic home demo appears on the band's 2004 box set, With the Lights Out, and on their 2005 compilation album, Sliver - The Best of the Box. The song was never performed live or recorded in the studio, but other home-recorded demo versions are believed to exist.

According to Cobain's widow, Courtney Love, the song's original title and chorus lyric was "Dough, Ray, and Me," which Cobain later changed to "Me and My IV." The latter would probably have been the song's final title had Cobain lived long enough to record and release a studio version.

1 History
2 Several versions
3 Original plans
4 Trivia
5 References

[edit] History

"Do Re Mi" is unique among rare Nirvana songs in that it had never been bootlegged. Therefore, its release on With the Lights Out marked the first time it had ever been heard by fans.

However, fans had known about the song itself for years. Its first mention may have been in late 1994, when Courtney Love was interviewed by MTV's Kurt Loder in Toronto, Canada. "The last songs that [Cobain] wrote are so beautiful," she said, "...the last [song] is so weird because it's so damn beautiful, and it's so ironic because it's so happy. It's very White Album."

The following year, in an interview with Rolling Stone's David Fricke, Love once again mentioned the song, revealing that it was the last thing Cobain had written on their bed. She also revealed that its revision from "Dough, Ray, and Me" to the more medical-sounding "Me and My IV" came after Cobain's March 1994 drug overdose and brief coma in Rome, Italy. "I had asked him after Rome to freeze his sperm," she explained, "so there's this whole thing about freezing your uterus."

In March 2002, a firsthand description of "Do Re Mi" appeared in a Chicago Sun-Times article written by music critic Jim DeRogatis. DeRogatis had been invited to hear the song (among other unreleased Cobain recordings) by Love, and described it as boasting "a beautiful, Beatlesque melody," "an endearingly rough guitar solo," and "a long and climactic finale" featuring a repetition of the title.

The same year, a longstanding legal dispute between Love and surviving Nirvana members Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic was settled, paving the way for the band's "best-of" collection on October 29, 2002 (which featured "You Know You're Right," a song from the band's final studio session), and the long-awaited box set on November 23, 2004. Among the numerous unreleased Nirvana and Cobain recordings on the latter was an acoustic demo of "Do Re Mi," which many fans considered the highlight of the set. The same version was re-released on October 31, 2005 on the compilation album, Sliver - The Best of the Box.

[edit] Several versions

At least three versions of "Do Re Mi" are believed to exist.

The solo acoustic home demo which appears on With the Lights Out is ostensibly the same version Derogatis was allowed to hear in 2002. Judging from Cobain's more-slurred-than-usual vocals, it seems to represent a very early draft of the song.

A second version was recorded on 4-track in Cobain's basement in March 1994, and features Cobain on vocals and drums, then-Nirvana/ ex-Germs guitarist Pat Smear on guitar, and then-Hole guitarist Eric Erlandson on bass guitar. This version remains unsurfaced.

A third version was apparently recorded on March 25, 1994, following a drug intervention staged for Cobain at his residence. It is believed to feature Cobain on vocals and guitar (his newly modified Fender Telecaster), and Smear on guitar. [1] This version also remains unsurfaced.

[edit] Original plans

Little is known of Cobain's intentions for the song. Some have speculated it was to appear on an EP to promote Nirvana's Lollapalooza '94 appearance that Summer, but the band had pulled out of the tour even before Cobain's death.

Others believe it was to be used on a side project Cobain had planned with R.E.M.'s Michael Stipe, but that too was cancelled by Cobain shortly before his death.

"[The project] was all set up," said Stipe in a 1994 Newsweek interview by Jeff Giles. "He had a plane ticket. He had a car picking him up. And at the last minute he called and said, 'I can't come.'"

[edit] Trivia

"Do Re Mi" is also the title of a song written by the legendary American folk singer, Woody Guthrie. Guthrie's "Do Re Mi" was later covered by the Meat Puppets, a 1980s alternative rock band which Cobain greatly admired.