“Pennyroyal Tea” by Nirvana

"Pennyroyal Tea" is Kurt Cobain's song from In Utero, the third and final Nirvana album, released in September 1993 and recorded with Steve Albini at Pachyderm Studio. It's the band's quiet-loud trick at its most exhausted: a hushed, almost lullaby verse that keeps getting flattened by a chorus of grinding, sour guitar.

Scott Litt remixed it that November to get it ready for a single, and his mix ended up on the censored edition of In Utero in March 1994. The single itself was due in April 1994 and was pulled, video and all, after Cobain died that month; the handful of copies that slipped past the recall are now some of the priciest Nirvana collectables around. It finally came out on 7-inch vinyl for Record Store Day in 2014 and went to number one on Billboard's Hot Singles Sales chart.

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