“Rape Me” by Nirvana

"Rape Me" sits fourth on In Utero, Nirvana's third and final studio album, which arrived in September 1993, but Kurt Cobain had written it well before, just ahead of the release of Nevermind. He meant it literally, as a song against rape, nothing coded about it. The bridge came months later, and that part points at the battles he and his wife, Courtney Love, had with the media once the band went mainstream, which is why so many listeners hear the whole thing as a comment on fame.

Steve Albini recorded and mixed it, and he leaves it raw: Cobain's guitar and voice murmuring through the verses until Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl crash in and the chorus turns into a dare.

The song made trouble before anyone could buy it. Its title and words got Nirvana barred from playing it at the 1992 MTV Video Music Awards, and they helped keep In Utero off the shelves at Walmart and Kmart at first. In December 1993 it came out as the album's second single, a double A-side with "All Apologies", climbing to 32 in the UK and into the top 40 in Belgium and Ireland. It turned out to be the last original Nirvana single before Cobain's suicide in April 1994.

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