Nirvana front man Kurt Cobain wasn’t much of a sentimentalist but that didn’t stop him from forging a connection with Terry Jacks’ 1974 hit Seasons In The Sun which was the first record he ever bought. The song was penned by Rod McKuen as an English-language adaption of Jacques Brel’s 1961 tune called Le Moribund. Rod McKuen recently came to our attention thanks to Aaron Freeman’s recent album of McKuen covers entitled Marvelous Clouds. Jacks recorded the maudlin Seasons In The Sun in 1973 and the song enjoyed a three-week run atop the Billboard Hot 100 charts the next year marking the Canadian artist’s one hit here in the States.
In 1993 Nirvana entered a studio in Rio de Janeiro and laid down a version of Seasons In The Sun that wasn’t released until it was included in the 2004 box set With The Lights Out. For their take on Seasons In The Sun, the members of Nirvana switched instruments. While Kurt handled the vocals, he also played drums on the track. Krist Novoselic traded in his normal bass duties for a six-string electric guitar leaving Dave Grohl to play bass. A video of Nirvana’s Seasons In The Sun circulates complete with home movie footage. Take a look…
