Grunge music—that sludgy sound born in the Pacific Northwest—is known for its heft, thickness, and electrical instrumentation. Buzzing guitars blend with screeching vocals to create something that’s both dramatic and dark. To wit, bands like Nirvana, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, and Alice in Chains come readily to mind, with their emotive lead singers and walloping sounds.
But not every grunge song is created equal. Indeed, there are acoustic songs from the genre’s big names that made big splashes in their time and continue to today. Here below, we wanted to dive into three such songs. A trio of tracks that are both timeless and effective. These are three eternal grunge songs that still rock today.
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[RELATED: 3 Grunge Songs that Will Make Any Fan Tear Up]
“Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town” by Pearl Jam from Vs. (1993)
Written in a small room while the band was recording in San Francico, this song came to lead vocalist Eddie Vedder almost in a dream. He woke up one morning and began musing around on the guitar and the vocals came to him. He says he doesn’t even remember writing the lyrics down on paper. When the band’s Stone Gossard said he liked what Vedder was doing, they recorded the track later that day. And it was done. On the track, Vedder sings about encountering a person he can’t quite place, a visage he remembers but not entirely. He croons,
I seem to recognize your face
Haunting, familiar yet
I can’t seem to place it
Cannot find the candle of thought to light your name
Lifetimes are catching up with me
All these changes taking place
I wish I’d seen the place
But no one’s ever taken me
Hearts and thoughts they fade, fade away
Hearts and thoughts they fade, fade away
“Nutshell” by Alice in Chains from Jar of Flies (1994)
Though written on an acoustic guitar, which is normally a bright-sounding instrument, this track maintains Alice in Chains’ signature darkness. It’s a beautiful juxtaposition of sound. This tune, one of the band’s signature songs despite never being released as a single, is about loneliness and a person’s self being misrepresented in the world. It’s about another juxtaposition: the internal versus the external of life. And lead singer Layne Staley can’t seem to justify or come to terms with both. He sings,
My gift of self is raped
My privacy is raked
And yet I find, and yet I find
Repeating in my head
If I can’t be my own
I’d feel better dead
“Something in the Way” by Nirvana from Nevermind (1991)
This song, which enjoyed a recent resurgence thanks to its inclusion in the movie The Batman, ends the band’s 1991 LP Nevermind. It is about a time when lead singer Kurt Cobain was homeless and perhaps for a time even living and sleeping under a bridge near his home, though that story has been contested. Either way, it paints a picture of someone doing so, with a shoddy tarp for a blanket and scurrying animals all around. On the sad song, Cobain sings,
Underneath the bridge, tarp has sprung a leak
And the animals I’ve trapped have all become my pets
And I’m living off of grass, and the drippings from my ceiling
It’s OK to eat fish ’cause they don’t have any feelings
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