"Something In The Way" by Nirvana // Song Review

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"Something In The Way" was written by Kurt Cobain as the final track of Nirvana's sophomore album Nevermind, which invokes a haunting and atmospheric closing to the groundbreaking and genre-defining project. At the heart of it, it is a song about wanting to escape but not being able to find a way out and carrying a persistent sense that there is something in the way blocking the path forward - hence the title. The message of it is profoundly human and deeply introspective. Its stripped-back sound stands in stark contrast to much of the rest of the album, yet the sparse nature of the production and lyricsm is exactly why it stands as a conclusion that is as gentle as it is powerful. 

For years, the song was initially thought to be inspired by a brief period of homelessness that Kurt experienced when he ran away from home as a teenager in his hometown of Aberdeen, Washington. There are varying recounts of the time that was said to inspire the song's creation from his family and the rest of the band. Kurt was more likely writing from a largely fictional scenario and viewpoint on this track, as he told biographer Michael Azerrad that the lyrics were written "...like if I was living under the bridge and I was dying of AIDS, if I was sick and I couldn't move and I was a total street person. That was kind of the fantasy of it."

"Underneath the bridge, tarp has sprung a leak, and the animals I've trapped have all become my pets," he sings in the first and second verse. "And I'm livin' off of grass and the drippings from the ceilin', it's okay to eat fish 'cause they don't have any feelings".

Between the time Kurt wrote it in 1990 and the band recorded it in 1991, "Something In The Way" went through several iterations in both musicality and arrangement. It was initially intended to be performed with the full band, but they struggled to capture the fragile mood of the song that Kurt was after. Along with producer Butch Vig, they took a more bare approach to the song's sound instead. 

What emerged from those recording sessions was an understated, introspective masterpiece and one of the rawest in Nirvana's discography. The final piece of the puzzle came from the stunning string part performed by cellist Kirk Canning. "We took him into the studio on the last day and said, 'Here, play something,'" Kurt recalled in an interview with Kurt St. Thomas, "and he came up with something right away. It just fell like dominoes, it was really easy."

"Something In The Way" was never released as a single and remained a relative deep cut for the band until 2020, when it was featured prominently in the first trailer for the 2022 film The Batman. Its inclusion sparked a resurgence of interest and led the song to chart for the very first time nearly three decades after its release.

This was a song Nirvana had not often performed live either, but one of the defining live versions came from their iconic MTV Unplugged show, which was not even included in the original broadcast. In a 2023 Instagram comment, Kurt's daughter, Frances Bean Cobain, responded to a post featuring that particular MTV Unplugged performance of "Something In The Way" with a beautiful and heartbreaking anecdote about the song and her father; "I like to imagine that if we had been able to grow up together, he would’ve been gentle with me in the same way he was gentle singing that song."

Check out more from my song of the week series here. ☆ Thanks for reading! 

-Melissa ♡


Photo Credit: MTV, Nirvana



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