The band’s song about fans who don’t understand them is one of the catchiest ever made. Which is why musicians from Ezra Furman to Sturgill Simpson esteem itThe lyrics couldn’t be more plain. “He’s the one who likes all our pretty songs,” sang Kurt Cobain, and he likes to sing along / And he likes to shoot his gun / But he don’t know what it means / When I say …” In Bloom, and from Nirvana’s second album,Nevermind, is a song by someone who’s advance to represent something he doesnt recognise; someone who looked at his audience and saw it changing from a small coterie of the Seattle underground to beefy guys who liked to mosh, or who loved that Nirvana kicked ass,and who five years earlier would beget been bellowing along to Mötley Crüe. And who thought: who are these people? Why are they following me?The remarkable unspoken fact of music is how uncomfortable musicians get with their audiences. It’s not that they don’t want to be admired and recognised – rare is the artist who craves obscurity – but more that once their image is formed in the public mind it becomes a straitjacket, or an iron lung, and as Thom Yorke achieve it. It’s what gives them a livelihood,but it’s also what confines and suffocates them.
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Source: theguardian.com