The secret behind "Smells Like Teen Spirit" (Nirvana's song)

“Smells Like Teen Spirit” was the most famous Nirvana’s songs. It was write by Kurt Cobain in 1991, the front man of the band Nirvana. Kurt Cobain was a big fan of a punk rock band called Pixies, and he was trying to compose a song in the same rhythm of the band, “I was trying to write the ultimate pop song. Basically, I was trying to rip off The Pixies”, he said. This song took the band to the success.

There is a secret behind the title of the song. The title, which looks like a strong phrase for a punk rock band, was nothing more than a reference a famous deodorant that time. The phrase "smells like teen spirit" was write on the wall of a motel where he was staying by Katherine Hanna, the lead singer of the band Bikini Kill. Hanna did this as a kidding because her bandmate Tobi Vail, who was Cobain's girlfriend at the time, was a fan of the Teen Spirit deodorant. “Teen Spirit was manufactured by the Mennen Corporation, which had developed a line of very popular, somewhat "alternative" deodorants for men in the 1960s”. Kurt did not know that the name “Teen Spirit” was a reference to the deodorant; he really thought that was a phrase to express the new generation and the revolution. When Kurt discovered the true meaning, he was upset and humiliated.
The song was write because Kurt was disgusted with his generation`s apathy, his own apathy and spinelessness. Krist Novoselic said: "Kurt really despised the mainstream. That's what 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' was all about: The mass mentality of conformity." The song talks about the teenager’s freedom and the spirit of change. At that time the young people joined the punk scene, and a movement called anarchy to protest, and to fight for their rights, the movement was also known as generation x.