#95

#95
Plateau/Lake of Fire
Nirvana
The Meat Puppets



I first heard Plateau and Lake of Fire when I saw Nirvana Unplugged on MTV. It came out near the time that Kurt Cobain committed suicide. When MTV was doing these ”unplugged” shows, bands would put away their electric guitars and plays an intimate acoustic set.

When listened to in its entirety, ”Nirvana Unplugged in New York” seems like the most natural fit, they seemed as comfortable in sitting around in a small theatre playing their guitars as they did tearing up arenas and traditional rock venues. I don’t know perhaps even more. During these shows the bands expanded their play lists by doing cover songs and slowed down versions of their hits. Nirvana brought up the Kirkwood brothers who were better known as the Meat Puppets. Well they really were unknown until that point. They played three songs from their album Meat Puppets II, including the unremarkable Oh Me. But surrounding it were these two haunting songs.

Being included on the album gave the Meat Puppets a short-lived surge, but now they are only referenced as a footnote when talking about this concert.

These two songs are such standouts because they are so different lyrically to the rest of Nirvana’s repertoire. Most of Nirvana’s lyrics were very straight forward, but the Puppets words have a lot of layers to peel through. If you listen to the instrumental portions of Lake of Fire you could swear they were about to jump into a mellower Doors tune.

Kurt Cobain killed himself a few months after these recordings, how eerie is it that he is singing a song that asks, “Where do bad folks go when they die.” It gives me chills.

This sounds weird but when I listen to these songs, I imagine the cozy orange glow of a nice campfire. What is also great is that the recordings of these songs were in a live setting and you could hear the warm swell of applause at the end. Which makes it feel just right.