Cover Art #4: Heart-Shaped Box

The chorus hits you like uppercuts - “Hey! Wait!”

Middle School: I Got A Real Complaint

Every time I hear this song I am immediately transported back to middle-school. I distinctly remember the first time I heard it. The dark clean guitar of the opening riff. The kick in the chest when Grohl’s drums come in on the first chorus. The slither of Novaselik’s bass in the chorus to even out the strain of the guitar bends. The strain in Cobain’s voice “Hey, wait!”. You can tell it’s a painful, but necessary, reach.

This song hit in the peak of my transition to full-rebellion, teenage-angst mode. Grunge music was my constant companion at a turbulent time (for me). I was NOT cool in middle school, but the music I was listening to at the time (Nirvana, SoundGarden, Nine Inch Nails, Rage Against The Machine) let me be a different person. Inspiring enough to shed that dork skin and shave my head with the exception of a long, stringy lock of hair up front. This music gave me something that nothing else at the time could: power to be myself.

Meat-eating Orchids

I was transfixed by the cover of In Utero, the album that included “Heart-Shaped Box”. A plastic female mannequin shell with angel wings, transparent so that you could see all of the fake organs on the inside. A subtle nod to Kobain’s interest in anatomy that he peppered throughout his songs and art. He does this in specific “keys” of the song like reproductive organs and astrological signs to keep the music stuck together like a dark web of spongy material.

It’s known that the song was about a heart-shaped box he gave Courtney Love at the beginning of their relationship. I can see glimpses of his broken relationship with his family, specifically his mother. But its true form is just out of reach. That’s the beauty though - it can be interpreted a number of different ways, all of which are valid depending on the listener’s context. That’s why it works so well. Combine that with the angst-y, strained vocals on the chorus that hit you like uppercuts - “Hey! Wait!” It demands your attention.

The Cover

After hearing this song for the first time in a really long time I couldn’t get it out of my head for days. I had been listening to it on repeat over Christmas. Its melody haunted me constantly: in the shower, in the car, going to sleep. I was at my parents’ house and didn’t have a guitar so decided to work it out on piano. I transposed it to a lower key so I could sing it without having to sing full-throated. That lower key opened up new musical and melodic possibilities. I knew I could never do it justice to straight-up cover it (let’s be honest - no one could ever emulate Cobain’s guttural delivery). I had the idea to instead do a slower, more melancholy version accompanied by piano. As I worked on it it started to morph, pulling in other influences from that middle-school time-period. I’m happy to share the result of that journey with you. I hope you enjoy it.

The Art

The art in the video is based on this original painting.