Early 1994 Cobain residence, Bedroom Seattle, WA, US

Early 1994 Cobain residence, Bedroom Seattle, WA, US

Artist
Cobain, Kurt (vocals, guitar)
Set
[X] Talk To Me
[X] Talk To Me
[X] Opinion
[X] Opinion
[O] Do Re Mi
Best available sources
Source Quality Complete Runtime Lowest Gen Tracks Featured Notes
AUD #1 8.0 Unknown 0:04:24 Official CD (With The Lights Out)
• Do Re Mi

Notes
Details of these recordings first emerged in late 1994, when Courtney Love gave an interview to Rolling Stone's David Fricke. Responding to a question about Cobain's unpublished works, Love cited Opinion, Talk To Me and the mysterious Do Re Mi (or Dough, Ray and Me) as among the more rounded compositions. Describing the latter song to Fricke, Love gushed, Every part of it is really catchy. He was calling it Dough, Ray and Me. I thought it was a little corny. It was the last thing he wrote on our bed. The chorus was Dough, Ray and me/Dough, Ray and me, and then it was Me and my IV. I had asked him after Rome to freeze his sperm. So there's this whole thing about freezing your uterus. (99)

Then, in 2002 - amid a legal dispute between Novoselic, Grohl and The Cobain Estate - Chicago rock critic, Jim Derogatis, was invited to review a selection of the recordings that Love had stockpiled, including the highly coveted Do Re Mi. The sound quality is sketchy, to say the least, Derogatis reported. But as soon as that famously gruff voice kicks in, it's vital, entrancing, and impossible to ignore. The song boasts a beautiful, Beatlesesque melody in the tradition of About a Girl, the standout track from Bleach. In addition to an endearingly rough guitar solo, its other outstanding feature is the moaned/whined/chanted repetition of Dough/Ray/Me, Do/Re/Mi over and over during a long and climactic finale. (26)

Parties eventually reconciled and Do Re Mi was released on 2004's With The Lights Out box-set.

Demos of Talk To Me and Opinion remain unreleased. They are not thought to have been recorded at the same sitting as Do Re Mi.

Alex Roberts.