“Lake of Fire” by Nirvana

"Lake of Fire" belongs to the Meat Puppets, a Curt Kirkwood song from their second album, Meat Puppets II, which came out in April 1984. Nirvana hauled it into the spotlight in November 1993, playing it on MTV Unplugged as one of three songs from that record, and they brought the source along: Curt Kirkwood sat in on guitar, with his brother Cris, the Meat Puppets' bassist, on bass and backing vocals.

It's a strange, spooky little tune, half cowpunk shuffle and half campfire ghost story, and in Nirvana's hands it comes out ragged and haunted, the unplugged setting only making it eerier. That night handed a cult favorite a far bigger audience.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.