Nirvana
“WE WANTED TO CALL IT SHEEP!”
Dave Grohl on Nevermind’s original title…
“WE were staying at this corporate apartment complex called the Oakwood, which a lot of musicians call the ‘Cokewood’. One night after coming home from the studio, we turned on the TV and Kurt and I watched this graphic documentary on underwater birth. It was sort of beautiful and funny to see these newborns squirming through water. Kurt had some sort of obsession with birth and reproduction and anatomy, and I think there was something about that image that he really connected with. I guess it was maybe the innocence of it all. Originally we wanted to name the album ‘Sheep’, and were talking about the cover being an overhead shot of a field full of Winnebagos and trailers. Then we saw that documentary and brought it up to the head of Geffen’s art department, who then found a photo that we didn’t end up using – but was similar. It was either Kurt or Krist that joked: “Oh yeah, you should put a dollar bill on a hook in front of it…”