Serving the Servant: Remembering Kurt Cobain

by Danny Goldberg

The song “Territorial Pissings” on Nevermind begins with a phrase lifted from the sixties song “Get Together,” the most successful version of which was performed by the Youngbloods. In a fierce, garbled voice that seems to mock the hippie anthem Krist sings, “Come on people now / smile on your brother / everybody get together / try to love one another right now.” Many rock critics described the intro as a signal that Nirvana was mocking the peace-and-love era. However, Krist told me they did not mean to impugn the ideals of the song but were bitterly commenting on the abandonment of those ideals by the majority of baby boomers as they got older and more influential. The most complete answer Kurt gave in public about “Get Together” was in an interview in Brazil’s O Globo: “The song speaks of people who join together to be cool and try something new, the ideal contrast to the macho men I’m portraying in ‘Territorial Pissings.’ We didn’t want to be offensive to the guy who wrote it. The idea of being positive and causing change in society and the world was appropriated by the media, who turned it into something ridiculous, a caricature.”