"On A Plain" is a song by the American rock band, Nirvana. It is the eleventh song on their 1991 album, Nevermind. File links The following pages link to this file: On a Plain ... A collection of various CD singles In music, a single is a short recording of one or more separate tracks. ... This article is about the American grunge band. ... For other uses, see Nevermind (disambiguation). ... is the 267th day of the year (268th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1991 (MCMXCI) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the 1991 Gregorian calendar). ... Year 1991 (MCMXCI) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the 1991 Gregorian calendar). ... Van Nuys is a district within the city of Los Angeles, California, United States. ... North Hollywood is a district in the San Fernando Valley region of the City of Los Angeles, California. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... Grunge redirects here. ... In the music industry, a record label is a brand and a trademark associated with the marketing of music recordings and music videos. ... DGC Records was a subsidiary of Geffen Records, founded by David Geffen on March 20, 1990. ... Sub Pop is a record label in Seattle, Washington that achieved fame in the 1990s for first signing Nirvana, Soundgarden, Mudhoney and many other bands from the local Seattle music scene. ... In the music industry, a record producer (or music producer) has many roles, among them controlling the recording sessions, coaching and guiding the musicians, organizing and scheduling production budget and resources, and supervising the recording, mixing and mastering processes. ... Butch Vig (born Bryan David Vigorson, August 2, 1957 in Viroqua, Wisconsin) is both a record producer and the drummer of the popular rock band Garbage. ... This article is about the American grunge band. ... Lithium is a song by the grunge band Nirvana. ... Nevermind track listing For the upcoming film, see In Bloom (film). ... For other uses, see Rock music (disambiguation). ... This article is about the American grunge band. ... Year 1991 (MCMXCI) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the 1991 Gregorian calendar). ... An album or record album is a collection of related audio or music tracks distributed to the public. ... For other uses, see Nevermind (disambiguation). ...

History

"On A Plain" was written by Kurt Cobain in 1990. It was first recorded in the studio on January 1, 1991 by Craig Montgomery in Seattle, Washington. It was debuted live on May 29, 1991 in Los Angeles, California. Kurt Donald Cobain (February 20, 1967 – c. ... Year 1990 (MCMXC) was a common year starting on Monday (link displays the 1990 Gregorian calendar). ... Seattle redirects here. ... Los Angeles and L.A. redirect here. ...

"On A Plain" was recorded for Nevermind in May or June 1991 by Butch Vig in North Hollywood. It was released as a promo single in the summer of 1992, and became a moderate alternative rock hit. Butch Vig (born Bryan David Vigorson, August 2, 1957 in Viroqua, Wisconsin) is both a record producer and the drummer of the popular rock band Garbage. ... North Hollywood is a district in the San Fernando Valley section of Los Angeles, California. ... A promo single (short for promotional single) is a single that is released to club or radio outlets for the purpose of promotion of a song. ... Year 1992 (MCMXCII) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display full 1992 Gregorian calendar). ... Alternative music redirects here. ...

An acoustic version was recorded during Nirvana's MTV Unplugged set on November 18, 1993. This version appears on the band's MTV Unplugged in New York album, released in November 1994. It features Lori Goldston on cello. A steel string acoustic guitar is a modern form of guitar descended from the classical guitar, but strung with steel strings for a brighter, louder sound. ... MTV Unplugged is a series showcasing popular musical artists playing acoustic instruments. ... Year 1993 (MCMXCIII) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display full 1993 Gregorian calendar). ... MTV Unplugged in New York is a live album by the American grunge band, Nirvana. ... Lori Goldston is an American musician. ... This article is about the stringed musical instrument. ...

A live performance appears on the band's 1994 home video, Live! Tonight! Sold Out!!. It was recorded at the Roskilde Festival on June 16, 1992 in Roskilde, Denmark. Year 1994 (MCMXCIV) The year 1994 was designated as the International Year of the Family and the International Year of the Sport and the Olympic Ideal by the United Nations. ... The home video business rents and sells videocassettes and DVDs to the public. ... front cover Live! Tonight! Sold Out!! is a VHS/Laserdisc home video released by the grunge band Nirvana on November 15, 1994. ... The tone or style of this article or section may not be appropriate for Wikipedia. ... This article is about the town in Denmark. ...

Another live performance of "On A Plain" from Nirvana's show at the Paradiso Club in Amsterdam on November 25, 1991 appears on the re-release of Live! Tonight! Sold Out!! which was re-released on DVD in 2006. front cover Live! Tonight! Sold Out!! is a VHS/Laserdisc home video released by the grunge band Nirvana on November 15, 1994. ...

Yet another version, a rehearsal of "On A Plain" can be found after the credits have ended on the DVD version of Live! Tonight! Sold Out!!. front cover Live! Tonight! Sold Out!! is a VHS/Laserdisc home video released by the grunge band Nirvana on November 15, 1994. ...

Later, through the release of Cobain's Journals, it was discovered that two lines - "Black sheep got blackmailed again" and "I got so high, I scratched 'til I bled" - were lifted from an early draft of a then-unreleased song, entitled "Verse Chorus Verse". Journals is a collection of writings and drawings done by Kurt Cobain, lead singer and guitarist of the grunge band Nirvana, from the late 1980s until his death in 1994. ... Verse-chorus-verse can refer to: Verse and chorus Musical form This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ...

The song, along with many others off Nevermind, was last played at the last Nirvana show on March 1, 1994 in Munich. is the 60th day of the year (61st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1994 (MCMXCIV) The year 1994 was designated as the International Year of the Family and the International Year of the Sport and the Olympic Ideal by the United Nations. ...

Meaning

In a 1993 interview with Jon Savage, Cobain said that "On A Plain" was about "classic alienation." [1] However, he also admitted that he offered a different explanation for his songs every time he was asked, because he didn't know their meanings himself. "For the most part, I write songs from pieces of poetry thrown together," he revealed. "When I write poetry it's not usually thematic at all. I have plenty of notebooks, and when it comes time to write lyrics, I just steal from my poems." Jon Savage real name Jonathan Sage (born 1953) is a writer, broadcaster and music journalist, best known for his award winning history of the Sex Pistols and punk music, Englands Dreaming (1991). ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... This article is about the art form. ... In literature, a theme is a broad idea in a story, or a message or lesson conveyed by a work. ...

"On A Plain" may be a good example of this. According to the 1993 Nirvana biography Come as You Are: The Story of Nirvana by Michael Azerrad, the song's lyrics were written minutes before it was recorded for Nevermind. Each line of the song seems to have a different meaning. For example, the line "Don't quote me on that" comes from a running in-joke at the studio, in which everyone would end their sentences with the phrase, "But don't quote me on that!" Michael Azerrad is an American author, journalist and musician. ... An in joke is a joke whose humour is clear only to those people who are in a group that has some prior knowledge (not known by the whole population) that makes the joke humorous. ...

The "black sheep" in the song is believed to be Cobain himself, which supports his explanation that the song was about being alienated. In the same interview with Savage, Cobain spoke at length about his isolated youth, saying he had few friends in his hometown of Aberdeen, Washington, and spent much of his time reading books by Susan E. Hinton. "I was so antisocial that I was almost insane," he said. "I felt so different and so crazy that people just left me alone." Black sheep is a derogatory colloquialism in the English language meaning an outsider or one who is different in a way which others disapprove of. ... Tribute to Kurt Cobain in Aberdeen, installed by the Kurt Cobain Memorial Committee. ... Susan Eloise Hinton (born on July 22, 1948 in Tulsa, Oklahoma) is an American author who wrote five young adult novels in the 1960s. ... Antisocial personality disorder (APD) is a personality disorder which is often characterised by antisocial and impulsive behaviour. ...

Covers

"On A Plain" has been covered by the following artists:

• American experimental rock band Animal Collective.
• American punk rock band Agent Orange (Smells Like Bleach: A Punk Tribute to Nirvana)
• American indie rock band Rogue Wave
• alternative rock band Dead Sex Kitten (Smells Like Nirvana: A Tribute to Nirvana)

For experimental rock music, see experimental rock. ... Animal Collective is a New York City-based group of experimental musicians from Baltimore, Maryland. ... Punk rock is an anti-establishment music movement beginning around 1976 (although precursors can be found several years earlier), exemplified and popularised by The Ramones, the Sex Pistols, The Clash and The Damned. ... Agent Orange is a punk band from Placentia, California. ... Indie rock is a subgenre of rock music often used to refer to bands that are on small independent record labels or that arent on labels at all. ... Rogue Wave is an indie rock band from Oakland, California, (formerly signed to Sub Pop, now to Brushfire Records), and headed by Zach Schwartz (a. ... Alternative music redirects here. ...

Chart Position

Accolades

• Ranked #19 in NME's "Top 20 Nirvana Songs" (2004)

For other uses, see NME (disambiguation). ...

References

• Azerrad, Michael. Come as You Are: The Story of Nirvana, Doubleday, New York: 1993, ISBN 0-86369-746-1
• Kurt Cobain: The Lost Interview by Jon Savage, Guitar World, 1997