Aneurysm (song)

Written in 1990, "Aneurysm" is one of the few Nirvana songs credited to all three members. It was first performed live on November 25, 1990, at the Off Ramp Café in Seattle, Washington. The first studio version was recorded on January 1, 1991, at Music Source in Seattle, Washington. The session was recorded by the band's audio engineer Craig Montgomery, and was their first with Grohl, who had joined Nirvana in September 1990. This version of the song was released as a b-side on the "Smells Like Teen Spirit" single in September 1991, along with "Even in His Youth," recorded at the same session. Both songs were re-released on the Australian and Japanese tour EP, Hormoaning, in January 1992.

A second studio version of "Aneurysm" was recorded by Miti Adhikari for the BBC program The Evening Session at Maida Vale Studios in London, England. It appeared on the band's rarities compilation Incesticide in December 1992, along with versions of "Polly" and "Been a Son" from the same session. Of the four songs recorded during the session, the band spent the longest working on "Aneurysm," using fade-ins and fade-outs on the backing vocals during the verses to give the recording an "unusual" vocal effect, as described by author Gillian G. Garr, and overall "lighter" feel than the Music Source version.[1]

Despite never being released on a studio album, "Aneurysm" was a regular part of the band's setlist in 1991 and 1992. Its final performance was on August 6, 1993, at the King Cat Theatre in Seattle.

In his AllMusic review of Incesticide, Stephen Thomas Erlewine wrote that "Aneurysm" was "perhaps the greatest single song the group ever recorded."[6] Allmusic's' Mark Deming wrote that the song "may have been [Nirvana's] final grunge masterpiece" before the release of their mainstream breakthrough Nevermind in September 1991, and described it as being characterized by "big, loud rock riffs, pop culture parody, self-conscious self-disgust, and a finale worthy of a thousand upheld Bic lighters."[3] Jenny Pelly of Pitchfork called the song "the apex of [Incesticide] and Nirvana's career," writing that it "never fails to put the stupidest grin on my face, and I cannot hear it without flailing every inch of my body to its squirming emotional upheaval, without jerking my shoulders to its torrential feedback of the heart, as if succumbing to every knot and crevice of this punk song could save my life."[7]

In 2013, "Aneurysm" was voted the seventh best Nirvana song in a Rolling Stone's reader's poll.[8] In 2015, it was ranked at number 30 on Rolling Stones' No Apologies: All 102 Nirvana Songs Ranked list.[9] In 2019, The Guardian placed it at number six on their list of Nirvana's 20 greatest songs, with Alex Petridis calling it "every bit the equal of anything on Nevermind."[10]

On April 10, 2014, "Aneurysm" was performed by surviving Nirvana members Grohl, Novoselic and Pat Smear, with lead vocals by Kim Gordon, vocalist and bassist of the American indie rock band Sonic Youth, at Nirvana's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony at Barclays Centre in Brooklyn, New York. Rolling Stone named it one of the 10 Best Cover Songs of 2014, calling it a "fitting" end to the ceremony given Sonic Youth's role in helping Nirvana attain mainstream success, and writing that "Kurt would've approved."[11] Gordon discussed the performance in her 2015 autobiography Girl in a Band, writing that "Onstage, I was reminded that Kurt was the most intense performer I had ever seen ... I sang 'Aneurysm,' with its chorus, 'Beat me out of me,' bringing in all my own rage and hurt from the last few years - a four-minute-long explosion of grief, where I could finally let myself feel the furious sadness of Kurt's death and everything else surrounding it."[12]

In 2017, to mark what would have been Cobain's 50th birthday, the Phonographic Performance Limited released a list of the top 20 most played Nirvana songs on television and radio in the UK, in which "Aneurysm" was ranked at number nine.[13]

A live version of "Aneurysm," recorded on December 28, 1991, at Del Mar Fairgrounds in Del Mar, California, appeared on the live compilation From the Muddy Banks of the Wishkah, released in October 1996. It was released as the album's first promotional single, peaking at number 11 on Billboard's Modern Rock Tracks chart and number 13 on Billboard's Alternative Songs chart.[14]

Footage of the band performing the song from the 1994 home video, Live! Tonight! Sold Out!!, was used as a music video on MTV and MuchMusic for the Del Mar Fairgrounds version in 1996, to promote its release as a promo single.[15] The Live! Tonight!! Sold Out!! version is an edit of two different live versions, from shows at the Paradiso in Amsterdam, Netherlands on November 25, 1991, and the Hollywood Rock festival in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on January 23, 1993. No footage of the Del Mar Fairgrounds performance is known to exist.

The "Aneurysm" video reached number one on the Canadian MuchMusic Countdown in November 1996.[16]

Nashville songwriter/producer Shane Tutmarc released an all electronic version of the song as a single, and music video, in 2013.[29]

• Azerrad, Michae (1993). Come as You Are: The Story of Nirvana. New York City: Doubleday. ISBN 0-86369-746-1.
• St. Thomas, Kurt; Smith, Troy (2004). Nirvana: The Chosen Rejects. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-20663-1.

External video
Nirvana - Aneurysm (Live at Reading 1992) on YouTube, NirvanaVEVO

• http://www.livenirvana.com/digitalnirvana/discography/nirvana/aneurysm_promo_vhs.html
• http://www.livenirvana.com/digitalnirvana/discography/nirvana/pro-cd-1033_usa.html