“Lake of Fire” by Nirvana: Why Is This Song Stuck In My Head?
The last time I wrote about a song being stuck in my head, it was The Beatles’ “Flying” off of Magical Mystery Tour (yeah, the instrumental track). Not quite as obscure, but equally random, is my cerebral broken record of “Lake of Fire” as it was performed by Nirvana for their MTV Unplugged in New York in November of ’93. Inexplicably, It’s been stuck in my head since the middle of last week.
I’d say I haven’t seen or heard this version of the song in over 10 years or so, but I recently watched a behind the scenes special on the Unplugged performance on VH1 Classic (the bestest channel there is). But uh, it was over 2 months ago. I have no idea where this came from, and I’ve never even heard the original Meat Puppets version off of their ’83 record Meat Puppets II. But I will say that my punk-as-hell mom rocked Too High To Die around the house when I was younger (let this age me however it may).
“Lake of Fire” was one of the many covers Nirvana performed at the Unplugged session with the members of The Meat Puppets on stage. What can I say about this performance that hasn’t already been said? This was simply a landmark in music history, and I think it may be time to dust off this album or get the new DVD (which features the entire taping, and includes rehearsals of “Polly” and “Come As You Are”).
I found this pretty freakin’ awesome Meat Puppets home rehearsal from 1983 on youtube with a performance of the song that is very similar to the Nirvana rendition. Kinda eerie. EDIT: it’s been removed, but here’s another performance of the track by the handsome slobs…
Posted: January 23rd, 2008 under Misc.
Tags: Lake of Fire, Nirvana