Something in the Way

"Something in the Way" is a song by American rock band Nirvana, written by vocalist and guitarist Kurt Cobain. It is the 12th song on their second album, ''Nevermind'', released in September 1991. It is the final listed song on the album, although most copies of ''Nevermind'' also feature the hidden track " Endless, Nameless", which occupies the same track as "Something in the Way" and begins after approximately 10 minutes of silence.

Never released as a single and never a consistent part of the band's live setlist, "Something in the Way" charted for the first time in August 2020, after appearing in the first trailer for the 2022 superhero film, ''The Batman''. The song peaked at number two on ''Billboard''s US Rock Digital Songs Sales chart, and number five on their US Alternative Digital Songs Sales charts. It also reached the top 20 in both Amazon Music's and iTunes' digital music charts.

On the week of March 26, 2022, the song entered the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 at number 46, becoming the band's fifth entry on the chart and first since " You Know You're Right" in 2002. It also made the Top 40 in Australia, Canada, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Lithuania, New Zealand, Wales and on the ''Billboard'' Global 200.

Origin and recording

Early history

"Something in the Way" was written by Cobain in 1990. The earliest known version is a solo electric demo that appeared in a medley, along with the abandoned compositions "You Can't Change Me" and "Burn My Britches," first released on the Cobain compilation '' Montage of Heck: The Home Recordings'' in November 2015. American director Brett Morgen, who compiled the album as a soundtrack to his 2015 Cobain documentary ''Montage of Heck'', discussed the medley in a 2015 '' NME'' interview, saying it was "almost like a rock opera, and to hear 'Something in the Way' emerge from the ashes of those other tracks was quite revealing. Kurt might've done an edit on that track, but I believe it was close to a continuous take."

The first live performance of "Something in the Way" was on November 25, 1990, at The Off Ramp Café in Seattle.

''Nevermind''

"Something in the Way" was first recorded in the studio in May 1991 at Sound City Studios in Van Nuys, California by Butch Vig, for the band's second album, ''Nevermind''. According to Vig, Cobain had originally wanted to record the song's instruments with the full band, but when initial attempts at this were unsuccessful, Cobain sat on a couch in the control room of studio A and played the song for Vig on acoustic guitar, to show him how he thought it should sound. Vig was impressed with the way Cobain's solo rendition sounded, and after turning off the air-conditioning and unplugging the telephone in the control room, set up microphones and recorded the song this way instead, starting with the guitar and the vocals.

This became the core of the recording, with the first vocal take being used for the verses. Cobain then recorded vocal harmonies, and drummer Dave Grohl and bassist Krist Novoselic added their parts, though both Grohl and Novoselic had difficulty playing in time with Cobain's performance. Novoselic also had trouble tuning his bass to Cobain's guitar, a 12-string Stella acoustic with five nylon guitar strings that Cobain had never tuned, and Grohl had to play more quietly than he was used to, to match the song's gentle mood. "Kurt and I wanted the drums to be very understated," Vig recalled. "Dave was used to playing much louder; plus, it can be very difficult to go back and lay drums over an acoustic guitar track, as the meter may vary a bit". Cobain's harmonies, the bass and the drums were recorded in studio B, a smaller room down the hall from the larger one they generally worked in. On the final day of the ''Nevermind'' sessions, Kirk Canning, a friend of the band's they had met through L7, added cello to the recording, although he too had difficulties tuning to Cobain's guitar.

Post-''Nevermind''

On November 9, 1991, a version of the song was recorded by Miti Adhikari for the BBC
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