September 12: Nirvana, "About a Girl"From the Beatles to the only other band that rivals them in appeal, "About a Girl" is the most Beatles-like song in an entire catalog of songs inspired by John Lennon. In early performances "About a Girl" was confused for a Beatles song, and it's infection melody and lyrics about a thinly-veiled sexual affair bring an easy comparison in my mind to "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)". That is, until the refrain, where Kurt Cobain kicks the distortion pedal and rocks just as hard and raw as any grunge song. In one song Cobain shows why he was beloved by the teeny boppers in equal measure as the punk kids.My relationship with Nirvana is kinda embarrassing. I had heard Nevermind, when I was 8, probably by the time Kurt had killed himself. I bought In Utero when I was 16, and in my immature high school self, I violated the spirit of "In Bloom" by spewing mantras about rock and roll dying along with Kurt before I even knew he killed himself (I thought he was murdered, but not in the conspiracy-theory way: I was just misinformed). This led to a particularly embarassing moment in my junior year English class where I publicly went on my spiel and have tried to block from my memory ever since.It was not until "About a Girl", however, did I truly get Nirvana. By the time I had bought Bleach I had already been into punk, and thankfully, I bought Bleach before I heard the sappier version on Unplugged. I had read up on Nirvana's early days along with their breakthrough, and that smidgeon of taste and knowledge was all I needed to have my socks knocked off by arguably Nirvana's best song (I'd put it #3 on my list, behind "Teen Spirit" and a tad behind "Aneurysm"). It's both melodic and menacing, sweet and dangerous, and it's probably what got Nirvana signed to DGC as well (I don't think "Negative Creep" is very inviting to a major label).The Unplugged version has always been dissapointing to me, for no other reason that the amplification is what gives the Bleach version it's strength. I'll usually skip to "The Man Who Sold the World" when I listen to Unplugged, even though the album is dear to my heart (it gets better towards the second half).I have never been an advocate of the Courtney Love murder plot (I even started a facebook group called "Kurt Cobain was a bipolar heroin addict who shot himself in the face"), and while I am intrigued by what would have come, it's clear that he was completely drained by the time 1994 rolled around. Nirvana was not a lot of lost potential: it was a gift of god to ever have even existed.