Heart-Shaped Box
"Heart-Shaped Box" is a song by the American grunge band Nirvana, released as the first single from their third album, In Utero, by DGC Records on August 30, 1993. It was written by the vocalist and guitarist, Kurt Cobain. It was one of two songs on In Utero remixed by Scott Litt due to the band's dissatisfaction with the mixing by the producer, Steve Albini. The Litt remix also featured additional vocal harmonies and guitar by Cobain, which were the only elements on the album's 12 main tracks not recorded during the original sessions with Albini in February 1993.
Cobain explained that "Heart-Shaped Box" was written about children with terminal cancer. The song is generally also believed to be about his relationship with his wife, Courtney Love, of the American rock band Hole.
To avoid competing with album sales, the single was not released in the United States, but received considerable American radio play, reaching number one on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart. The single reached the top 10 in countries including Portugal, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Finland, and New Zealand, and the top 40 in numerous other countries.
"Heart-Shaped Box" was the final song performed at Nirvana's last concert, on March 1, 1994, in Munich, Germany. It was also the final Nirvana song to receive a music video before the suicide of Cobain in April 1994. The video, directed by Anton Corbijn, won two awards, including Best Alternative Video, at the 1994 MTV Video Music Awards.
Early history
"Heart-Shaped Box" was written by Cobain in early 1992 at the apartment in the Fairfax district of Los Angeles, California, he shared with his wife, the American musician Courtney Love. In a 1994 Rolling Stone interview with David Fricke, Love recalled hearing Cobain work on the guitar riff for the first time:The only time I asked him for a riff for one of my songs, he was in the closet. We had this huge closet, and I heard him in there working on 'Heart-Shaped Box.' He did that in five minutes. Knock, knock, knock. 'What?' 'Do you need that riff?' 'Fuck you!' Slam. He was trying to be so sneaky. I could hear that one from downstairs.
Cobain briefly set the song aside, then resumed work on it after he and Love moved to an apartment in Hollywood Hills, Los Angeles. Nirvana's first attempts to work on it were unsuccessful; Cobain said he waited for bassist Krist Novoselic and drummer Dave Grohl "to come up with something but it just turned into noise all the time". Eventually, during one jam session, Cobain said he "came up with the vocal style instantly and it just all flowed out real fast. We finally realized that it was a good song."
"Heart-Shaped Box" was first performed live on January 16, 1993, at the Hollywood Rock Festival in São Paulo, Brazil. It was first recorded in the studio a few days later, at BMG Ariola studios in Rio de Janeiro. Producer Craig Montgomery recalled hearing the song during the band's soundcheck in São Paulo, saying that "even then Kurt knew this was the single ... All the other stuff they had was way more noisy and abrasive than this. Even the other sound guys that were out there on the platform with me were going, 'Yeah, this is a good song. The band's guitar tech, Ernie Bailey, also had a positive initial reaction to the song in Brazil, saying that "you could tell this was an important song, in a lot of ways. You knew that it just had a lot of weight to it, even the first time you heard it."
Two versions of the song were recorded at BMG Ariola, with the initial take being done to test the studio's equipment. The second take was posthumously released on the band's rarities box set, With the Lights Out, in November 2004, and on the compilation album Sliver: The Best of the Box in November 2005. On January 23, the band again performed "Heart-Shaped Box" live, at the Hollywood Rock Festival in Rio de Janeiro. These early versions of the song featured unfinished lyrics and what music journalist Gillian G. Gaar called "a far more experimental solo, more akin to the group's improvs".
''In Utero''
The final studio version of "Heart-Shaped Box" was recorded in February 1993 by Steve Albini at Pachyderm Studios in Cannon Falls, Minnesota, for the band's third studio album, In Utero. Work on the song began on February 14, the second day of recording. According to Albini in a 2013 interview for the audio series Spotify Landmark, "Heart-Shaped Box" was the only song recorded during the sessions that required "more than a couple of takes", along with eventual fourth single, "Pennyroyal Tea".In a 2013 Rolling Stone interview with Fricke, Grohl recalled that "everyone was concerned about the tempo of 'Heart-Shaped Box.' But click tracks were not cool. Kurt and Steve came up with this idea — we should use a strobe light . We had this long conversation about how it won't dictate the tempo, just imply the tempo. ... I sat there for a take or two with this fucking strobe light in my face until I practically had a seizure."
Despite his overall satisfaction with the recording, Novoselic was unhappy with the original effect used during the song's guitar solo, and recalled arguing with Cobain and Albini about it:
These were the words I said: 'Why do you want to take such a beautiful song and throw this hideous abortion in the middle of it? And they're like, 'Well, I don't know, it sounds good.' They didn't have any arguments, because they were sabotaging it is what they were doing.
Remix
The guitar effect was eventually removed when the song was remixed, along with second single "All Apologies", by Scott Litt at Bad Animal Studios in Seattle in May 1993, several months before the album's release. Cobain and Novoselic had agreed that the vocals and bass were too quiet in Albini's original mix of the album, and elected to have the two future singles remixed. Litt's remix of "Heart-Shaped Box" also featured newly recorded vocal harmonies and acoustic guitar by Cobain.Later performances
On September 25, 1993, the band performed "Heart-Shaped Box", along with "Rape Me", on Saturday Night Live at NBC Studios in New York City. It was their first show with second guitarist Pat Smear."Heart-Shaped Box" was the final song played at Nirvana's last show, on March 1, 1994, at Terminal 1 of Munich-Riem Airport in Munich, Germany.
Composition
"Heart-Shaped Box" is a grunge and alternative rock song that lasts for a duration of four minutes and thirty-nine seconds. According to the sheet music published at Musicnotes.com by BMG Rights Management, it is written in a time signature, with a moderate tempo of 100 beats per minute. It is in the key of A minor, modulating to A dorian on the verses, while Kurt Cobain's vocal range spans one octave, from the low note of A3 to the high note of A4.The song has a basic sequence of A5–F5–D5–A–F5–D7 in the verses and A5–F5–D7 during the chorus as its chord progression. Journalist Gillian Gaar described "Heart-Shaped Box" as "the Nirvana formula personified, with a restrained, descending riff played through the verse, building in intensity to the cascading passion of the chorus".
Lyrics
In the 1993 Nirvana biography Come As You Are: The Story of Nirvana, Cobain told author Michael Azerrad that "Heart-Shaped Box" was written about children with cancer. "Every time I see documentaries about little kids with cancer I just freak out", he explained. "It affects me on the highest emotional level, more than anything else on television." As Azerrad noted, however, the song's lyrics were more likely about Love. Charles R. Cross, author of the 2001 Cobain biography Heavier Than Heaven, described the lyric, "I wish I could eat your cancer when you turn black" as "what has to be the most convoluted route any songwriter undertook in pop history to say 'I love you'". Garr wrote that "while the song does reference , the lyrics appear more to address the physical and emotional dependencies inherent in relationships."Cobain's unused liner notes for In Utero, first described in Heavier Than Heaven and published in Journals the following year, featured an explanation for "Heart-Shaped Box" that "fell completely apart", according to Cross, "but touched on The Wizard of Oz, I Claudius, Leonardo da Vinci, male seahorses, racism in the Old West, and Camille Paglia".
The song's title was inspired by the collection of heart-shaped candy boxes Love kept in the front room of the Fairfax apartment she and Cobain lived in. However, early versions of the song featured the word "coffin" rather than "box". According to Bailey, the song also featured the working title "New Complaint." In a 1993 interview with Circus, Cobain explained that the chorus lyrics "Hey / Wait / I've got a new complaint" were a reference to how he believed he was often perceived by the media.
In 2012, Love wrote on Twitter that "Heart-Shaped Box" was about her vagina. Tweeting to the American musician Lana Del Rey, who had covered the song at a concert in Sydney, Australia, the previous week, Love wrote, "You do know the song is about my Vagina right? 'Throw down your umbilical noose so i can climb right back,' umm ... On top of which some of the lyrics about my vagina I contributed." The tweets were deleted shortly after.
Release
"Heart-Shaped Box" was released as In Utero's first commercial single on August 30, 1993, on CD, cassette tape, and 7-inch, and 12-inch vinyl record formats. The single was released in Europe only and peaked at number five on the UK Singles Chart, making it their highest-charting song there. All copies of the single featured the Grohl-composed "Marigold" as a B-side, while 12-inch vinyl and CD editions also included the In Utero track, "Milk It".In the United States, DGC sent promo copies of the song to American college, modern rock, and album-oriented rock radio stations in early September. The label did not actively court Top 40 radio, with Geffen Records' head of marketing explaining that "Nirvana didn't sell nearly 5 million because of a hit single. They sold that many albums because of who they are". DGC employee Mark Kates stated that "Generally we don't release commercial singles because we feel it cannibalises album sales" with fellow employee Jim Merlis adding that "European singles are released because overseas there's a whole singles market". However, the single was available in the US in limited numbers as an import release.
"Heart-Shaped Box" entered the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart at number seven, and eventually peaked at number one on the chart. The song also reached number four on the Mainstream Rock Tracks chart. Music & Media reported in November, 1993, that the song had been well received on Italian contemporary hit radio station RTL 102.5. In Israel, it was voted in at number 27 on the IBA's "Voice of Israel" singles chart in September 1993. It was also voted in at number 13 on Poland's LP3 chart in 1993.