Kathleen Hanna recently announced that she’s releasing a memoir next year called ‘Rebel Girl: My Life as a Feminist Punk’ which will hit shelves next year on May 14th. In her new memoir, Hannah will dive into her success as the singer for Bikini Kill and Le Tigre, her friendship with Kurt Cobain, and the story behind what inspired one of Nirvana’s biggest hits; ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit.’
In the late ’80s, Hanna’s band Bikini Kill and Nirvana had a close relationship. They were friends, and Kurt Cobain and Tobi Vail were also in a relationship for some time.
Regarding the song, Hannah shared in a phone interview in 2016 with Myf Warhurst, where she told the story behind how she came up with the name for the track. She recalled:
“We were just hanging out and getting drunk. At the grocery store in Olympia, me and Tobi [Vail] were like, ‘Eww, look at this, it’s so crazy! It’s called Teen Spirit!’ We were laughing, saying, ‘Your arm smells like Teen Spirit’ or whatever. I mean, who names a deodorant Teen Spirit?”
Kathleen continued:
“I ended up hanging out with Kurt and Dave [Grohl] that night. I started drawing on the wall with sharpie markers; I wrote, ‘Kurt smells like Teen Spirit’ because it was in my head from earlier in the grocery store.”
The name did come from a deodorant; however, Hannah revealed during the interview that she kept it to herself by explaining:
“He didn’t know it was a deodorant. I felt like a bit of an asshole that I didn’t tell him, but I thought it was funny. He just liked the ring of it. ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit.’ But he also just had a good knack for picking out interesting phrases.”
You can read the article about Kathleen Hannah’s new memoir here and listen to ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ below.
