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There’s something about Kurt Cobain’s death that is haunting his songs. Fans on forums often believe that the lyrics to “All Apologies” — the last song on Nirvana’s final studio album, In Utero — represent an hidden goodbye and an apologie for his death.

Nirvana premiered a demo of the song in 1991, and played it live at the UK’s Reading Festival in August 1992. Kurt Cobain dedicated the show to Courtney Love, who’d given birth to their daughter Frances Bean a week earlier, and called on fans to stand with her partner in this moment.

The song’s subtle, almost Beatles-like lyricism stood in contrast to the heaviness of In Utero’s grunge. “All Apologies” in the MTV performance with Cobain’s raw, cello-accented singing, was the highlight of the evening. Taken in one take, the song offered an idea of where Cobain might have gone further.

But what is the real meaning of the lyrics of “All Apologies”?

Song “All Apologies”
Writer Kurt Cobain
Producer Nirvana, Scott Litt
Label DGC
Album MTV Unplugged in New York (1994)

All Apologies” Lyrics

What else should I be?
All apologies
What else could I say?
Everyone is gay
What else could I write?
I don’t have the right
What else should I be?
All apologies

In the sun
In the sun, I feel as one
In the sun
In the sun
Married
Buried

I wish I was like you
Easily amused
Find my nest of salt
Everything is my fault
I’ll take all the blame
Aqua sea foam shame
Sunburn freezer burn
Choking on the ashes of her enemy

In the sun
In the sun, I feel as one
In the sun
In the sun
Married
Married

Married
Buried
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

All in all is all we are
All in all is all we are
All in all is all we are
All in all is all we are
All in all is all we are
All in all is all we are
All in all is all we are
All in all is all we are
All in all is all we are
All in all is all we are
All in all is all we are
All in all is all we are
All in all is all we are
All in all is all we are
All in all is all we are
All in all is all we are
All in all is all we are
All in all is all we are
All in all is all we are
All in all is all we are

Nirvana – “All Apologies

Source: Musixmatch

Songwriters: Kurt Cobain

All Apologies” lyrics © Primary Wave Tunes, The End Of Music, Bmg Rights Management (uk) Ltd (primary Wave)


Nirvana “All Apologies” Song Meaning

Although its lyrics speak to dislocation and alienation, and show the intensity of Kurt Cobain’s internal struggles, the song itself was written in 1990. The song itself echoes Kurt Cobain’s conflicted sense of the world: lines such as “choking on the ashes of her enemy,” and the chorus “Married / Buried” suggests Cobain’s ambivalent sense of the difficulties of life.

Let’s analyze some of the most emblematic lines from “All Apologies.”

What else should I be?/ All apologies/ What else could I say?/ Everyone is gay/ What else could I write?/ I don’t have the right/ What else should I be?/ All apologies

The lyrics aren’t meant to answer this question in this first section of the song. He is somehow rhetorical. The song isn’t about his past or Nirvana’s success. In an interview with music journalist and Kurt’s biographer, Michael Azerrad, he claimed that the song’s meaning was “peaceful, happy, comfort.” Overall, Kurt was asking questions that he knows that won’t find answers to it.

The polemic line “Everyone is gay” wasn’t written to insult anyone. In fact, he’s insulting those who take “gay” as an insult (which in the 90s was the vast majority). One of our favorite Kurt Cobain quotes merges with this lyrics, and it goes like this, “I am not gay, although I wish I were, just to piss off homophobes.

“I wish I was like you/ Easily amused/ Find my nest of salt/ Everything is my fault/ I’ll take all the blame/ Aqua sea foam shame/ Sunburn freezer burn/ Choking on the ashes of her enemy”

Kurt Cobain is envying people who get all he wants because he struggles with being happy. The “nest of salt” might mean a place of discomfort or hurt, perhaps of pain. Blame all the people implies guilt or blame for his and others’ misery. The blame he takes in “aqua seafoam shame” might refer to embarrassment or shame related to his personal struggle or publicity.

Sunburn freezer burn” is a case in point for how extreme Cobain could get at times; the peaks and valleys of fame or despair, and “Choking on the ashes of her enemy” is about Cobain and his marriage Courtney Love and all the pressure they both went through.

“All in all is all we are”

When Nirvana’s song “All in all is all we are” comes back to you again and again, it smacks of Kurt Cobain reflecting on the humanity of people and their interdependence. This quotation implies that we share all of our lives and faults, and it calls attention to a universal human condition. 

Some have tied this sentiment to Buddhist ideas of unity and the bond of life (according to the band’s moniker, “Nirvana”, meaning freedom and union).

Second, the refrain can convey a resigned acceptance of one’s identity and situation, as though we all have our differences and pains but are still exactly the same. This view fits with the song’s concerns about reflection and finding peace in the face of stress.


All Apologies” Live Performance at MTV Unplugged

“All Apologies” (MTV Unplugged).
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