Like numerous other folk songs, "In the Pines" was passed on from one generation and locale to the next by word of mouth. A live rendition by American grunge band Nirvana, based on Lead Belly's interpretation, was recorded during their MTV Unplugged performance in 1993, and released the following year on their platinum-selling album, MTV Unplugged in New York. In 1964, a version of the song by English Beat music group the Four Pennies reached the top-twenty in the United Kingdom. Versions of the song have been recorded by many artists in numerous genres, but it is most often associated with American bluegrass musician Bill Monroe and American blues musician Lead Belly, both of whom recorded very different versions of the song in the 1940s and 1950s. The songs originated in the Southern Appalachian area of the United States in the contiguous areas of Eastern Tennessee and Kentucky, Western North Carolina and Northern Georgia. " In the Pines", also known as " Where Did You Sleep Last Night?", " My Girl" and " Black Girl", is a traditional American folk song originating from two songs, "In the Pines" and "The Longest Train", both of whose authorship is unknown and date back to at least the 1870s. In other words, this iconic performance means what you want it to mean.For the album by The Triffids, see In the Pines (album). But obviously gets magnified in the context of what happened later." Everyone knew we just saw another side of a very important band. Speaking in the Bare Witness making-of documentary, he says: "Everyone knew this was special. Perhaps the last word should go to Alex Coletti, the producer of MTV Unplugged at the time. (And anyone prepared to appear onstage with Dave Grohl wearing a turtleneck jumper and a ponytail had to have a sense of humour.)įor once, the extras are worth a look - see the alternate versions of Come as You Are, Polly and Pennyroyal Tea, as wells as covers of Plateau by the Meat Puppets and Bowie's The Man Who Sold the World from rehearsals. Cobain slowly swivels on his chair bringing a wry grin to bear and says, "I don't think MTV will let us play that," a reference to the band's appearance at 1992 MTV Awards, when they were banned from playing song. Before the highlight of the evening, a cover of Where Did You Sleep Last Night by Leadbelly, someone shouts out a request for Rape Me. And when Cobain sighs before the opening song, About a Girl, while staring in to the middle distance with something like terror in his eyes, it's hard not to think of the words he later wrote in a far from metaphorical suicide note: "The fact is, I can't fool you, any one of you".īut there was a lighter side to Cobain, too. The stage set certainly seems pregnant with meaning: dressed with black candles and white lilies, it couldn't look more like a funeral. It also supports both sides of the you-could-tell-something-was-wrong / it-was-just-a-good-gig argument. Many people will be familiar with this performance from the album, but even so this 66-minute unedited footage (including Something in the Way and Oh Me, which were cut from the original broadcast) makes fascinating viewing. But until now it has never been available as a video or DVD (bootlegs notwithstanding). When it was released seven months after Cobain took his own life, Nirvana: Unplugged in New York sold over 5m copies in America alone, topped the album charts in seven countries, and went on to win a Grammy for Best Alternative Music Album.
Others reckon it to be an interesting and eclectic example of the Unplugged format, but that any deeper meaning is the product of myth-making and hindsight. Some people consider it to be Kurt Cobain, the tortured genius, stripping both his songs, and himself, to the bone in a brilliant, painfully raw performance that amounts to a kind of suicide note. Opinion on Nirvana's MTV Unplugged performance at Sony Music Studios in New York on November 18, 1993, is divided into two camps.