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Monday, September 27, 2004
ROCK 'N' ROLL BON MOTS #018

For all the times I get annoyed at the praise lavished on Kurt Cobain's voice--what I love about Nirvana is tied up pretty intimately with the songwriting and instrument-playing--right now I'm listening to some non-Unplugged version of "Where Did You Sleep Last Night," and, I mean, goddamn. That's a hell of a voice right there. The arrangement doesn't make it as dramatic as it is on the album version, but when he jumps to the upper register at 2:02 and stays there for a few verses before a breakdown, it's just fantastic. The instruments are trying to keep up and failing, and that just makes it better, somehow. He croaks "through, through," and you get shivers.