Ongoing History Daily: The squeaks in Nirvana’s Drain You
Chances are you’ve listened to Nirvana’s Nevermind album a million times. Track eight on the CD is called Drain You and for the most part is a straightforward Kurt Cobain song. But about 90 seconds into the song, there’s a breakdown of freakout guitar playing along with some mysterious squeaks. What’s happening there?
Kurt had some toys in the studio that day, including a rubber duck and a squeaky mouse. With the tape rolling, Kurt picked them up and started squeezing them. Some reverb, delay, and other processing were used to give them those weird sounds.
And all those weird machine-like sounds? That’s Kurt just goofing into the microphone.