"Sliver" is a song by the American rock band Nirvana, written by vocalist and guitarist Kurt Cobain.
The song was released as a non-album single by the band's then record label, Sub Pop, in September 1990.
The same recording was re-released on the compilation album Incesticide by DGC in December 1992, and a new music video was released to promote the album.
Origin and recording
"Sliver" was written in 1990.
According to the 1993 biography Come As You Are: The Story of Nirvana by Michael Azerrad, the song was written during a rehearsal with Dan Peters, who briefly played drums with Nirvana while the future of his own band, Mudhoney, was uncertain.
According to Azerrad, the lyrics to "Sliver" were written shortly before they were recorded, although an acoustic demo of the song, first released on Nirvana box set With the Lights Out in November 2004, suggests that Cobain had written some of the lyrics before entering the studio to record the vocals.
"I decided I wanted to write the most ridiculous pop song I had ever written," Cobain explained to Azerrad, in order "to prepare people for the next album," which became their 1991 release, Nevermind.
Much of the song was recorded by Jack Endino at Reciprocal Recording in Seattle, Washington on July 11, 1990, during a studio break by the Sub Pop band, TAD "We called Tad up and asked if we could come over and record the song," Cobain recalled in a Melody Maker interview with journalist Push in December, 1990.
"We used their instruments while they sat around eating.
But that's nothing new...the key to a successful album is to get the fuck out of the studio before you're sick of the songs."
With Peters on drums, the band recorded the song's music in less than an hour.
Two weeks later, on July 24, Cobain returned to the studio and recorded his vocals as well as additional guitar with Endino, who then mixed the track.
Cobain was pleased with the recording, telling Azerrad, "It has a massive naïveté to it.
It was done so fast and raw and perfect that I don't think we could capture that again if we decided to rerecord it.
It's just one of those recordings that happened and you can't try to reproduce it.
Unlike most Nirvana songs, "Sliver" was recorded in the studio before it had ever been played live.
Its live debut was on September 22, 1990 at the Motor Sports International Garage in Seattle, the only show that Peters ever played with the band.
"Sliver" also represents Peters' only appearance on a Nirvana studio recording.
Cobain was happy with the time Peters spent with Nirvana, telling Azerrad, "The chemistry was definitely there...We could have ended up writing some really good songs together."
As Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic explained, however, "If Dan were to have joined our band it would've been certain that Mudhoney was finished, and we didn't want to be responsible for that."
The final live performance of "Sliver" was at Nirvana's last concert, at Terminal Einz in Munich, Germany on March 1, 1994.
Composition and lyrics
According to Azerrad, "Sliver" contains the most literal lyrics that Cobain ever wrote, telling a story of a boy who is left with his grandparents for the day by his parents, has a difficult time eating dinner and playing, and insists on being taken home until he finally falls asleep after eating ice-cream and watching television, and later wakes up in his "mother's arms."
Despite the straightforward lyrics, the song was given an intentionally confusing title, with Cobain explaining, "I had a feeling if I called it 'Sliver,' most people would call it 'Silver.'"
Release and reception
Originally Cobain wanted to release Sliver on a promotional EP to coincide with a debut single release of In Bloom, for the then-conceived album 1990 titled Sheep.
The EP would've been titled NIRVANA Sings Songs of The Vaselines, The Wipers, Devo, & Nirvana.p.141-143, Kurt Cobain, Journals (2003)
The "Sliver" single was first released on 7-inch vinyl in the US in 1990 by Sub Pop.
The initial run of 3,000 copies was pressed on black, marbled blue, or clear pink vinyl.
It was released on CD single, 7-inch vinyl and 12-inch vinyl in the UK in 1991 on the Tupelo record label, and peaked at number 90 on the UK Singles Chart.
Noted music photographer Charles Peterson provided black and white photography.
The single charted at number 23 in Ireland in 1992, due to the success of the band's second album, Nevermind, released in September 1991.
The song was re-released on the band's compilation album Incesticide in December, 1992, and was released to radio to promote the album, charting at number 19 on the US Modern Rock Tracks chart in early 1993.
The "Sliver" single re-charted at number 77 on the UK Singles Chart in December 1992, due to the release of Incesticide.
The Incesticide and CD single versions omit a phone conversation between a hungover Novoselic and Sub Pop co-founder Jonathan Poneman that appears at the end of the song in the vinyl single.
The exchange, which ends with a confused-sounding Novoselic advising Poneman to call back later that day, was accidentally recorded on Novoselic's answering machine.
Reviewing the single in a 1990 issue of Melody Maker, Everett True wrote, "Sure, the vocals are lazily throat splitting, the guitars belligerently grungy, the bass up and out of place . . .
but check the melodies, damn fools, check the melodies.
The only reason this isn't 'Single Of The Week' is because three even mightier singles were released this week."
The single was re-released on silver 7-inch vinyl on 26 March 2021 by Jackpot Records and it is limited to 1,000 copies.
Legacy
In 2011, NME ranked the song at number nine on their list of the 10 best Nirvana songs.
In 2015, Rolling Stone placed it at number three on their ranking of 102 Nirvana songs.
In 2020, it was ranked at number one on Kerrang!'
s The 20 Greatest Nirvana Songs - Ranked list, with Sam Law calling it "a finely-balanced moment in time, powered by the frontman’s tortured intelligence but not yet corrupted by the anguish and addiction that would eventually spell his demise."
Rivers Cuomo, of the American alternative rock band Weezer, named "Sliver" as the song that made the biggest impact on his life in his early 20s, and shared his memory of hearing it for the first time in a 2015 Pitchfork interview: "It was just one of those things where, by the time it got through the first chorus, I was just running around the store ... [It] had the simplicity of the Velvet Underground in the structure and the chords ... [and] the melody and the major chord progression of the pop music I love, like ABBA, but also this sense of destructiveness ... and it came out in this new hybrid style."
Music video
A music video was made for the song in March 1993 to promote Incesticide, although the album had been released several months earlier.
The video was directed by Kevin Kerslake, who had also directed the videos for the band's three previous singles, "Come As You Are," "Lithium" and "In Bloom."
The video starts with Cobain's infant daughter Frances Bean Cobain dancing to the song's bassline, held by Kurt from behind while his arms were sticking out of two holes he cut through a piece of cardboard, then switches to the band performing the song in Cobain's garage.
The video shows Dave Grohl on drums, although he does not appear on the track.
Cobain does not play guitar in the video, only singing into a microphone while wearing a red and black striped mohair sweater his wife, Courtney Love, had bought for him from a fan after a Nirvana show in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
Cobain's garage itself had been decorated with toys, posters and artifacts he had collected over several years, and kept in storage since before Nevermind was recorded in May 1991.
Among the items featured in the video is a Chim-Chim toy which had been given to Cobain by the Japanese rock band Shonen Knife as a present.
The video was accepted by MTV in May, but frames featuring the logos of the magazines Maximumrockandroll and Better Homes and Gardens had to be removed due to the network's rules on product placement.
Track listings
1990 US 7 inch single
"Sliver" – 2:16
"Dive" (Cobain, Novoselic) – 3:55
1991 UK 7 inch single
"Sliver" – 2:16
"Dive" (Cobain, Novoselic) – 3:55
1991 UK 12 inch single
"Sliver" – 2:16
"Dive" (Cobain, Novoselic) – 3:55
"About a Girl" (live February 9, 1990 at the Pine Street Theatre, Portland, OR)
1991 UK CD single
"Sliver" – 2:16
"Dive" (Cobain, Novoselic) – 3:55
"About a Girl" (live February 9, 1990 at the Pine Street Theatre, Portland, OR)
"Spank Thru" (live February 9, 1990 at the Pine Street Theatre, Portland, OR)
2021 US 7 inch single
"Sliver" – 2:16
"Dive" (Cobain, Novoselic) – 3:55
Charts
Original 1990 US release
1991 UK release
1992 re-release
1993 US promo release
Accolades
Recording and release history
Although only recorded in the studio once, several live versions and one demo version of "Sliver" have been officially released.
Demo and studio versions
Live versions
Cover versions
Personnel
Kurt Cobain: vocals, guitar
Krist Novoselic: bass guitar
Dan Peters: drums
Jack Endino: recording and mixing engineer, producer
Notes
References
