Analysis: Nirvana were often associated with superficial themes like teenage angst, but the In Utero album and imagery are much darker than that
Walk down any street in any town in Ireland in 2025 and you will probably see someone wearing a Nirvana t-shirt. In particular, you will probably see them wear one of two types of t-shirt. One has an image of a smiley face on it and the other has an image of an angel. For years the smiley face was the more common image, but the image of the angel is now leading the way.
This image of the angel comes from the cover of Nirvana’s third major studio album, In Utero. It is an interesting image from a sociological point of view because it is an image of what is called abjection, which is the theme of death infecting life. You know you are potentially dealing with something abject when you see a breakdown between the inside and outside of the body.
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From NPR's All Songs Considered, surviving Nirvana members Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic talk about how In Utero came to be on the 20th anniversary of the album's release in 2013
Things that are considered to be abject are things like blood or bodily fluids; things that should be inside the body, but are now outside of it. These things are not always abject, but they can be, especially if there is a risk that they will get on the body and disrupt its feelings of impenetrability, cleanliness and order. Narrative often breaks down when you encounter something abject. An ability to tell a story in a straightforward way can be replaced by things like screams and a sense of paralyzing horror. Some sociologists argue that childbirth, in popular culture at least, can sometimes be portrayed as something abject.
In Utero was recorded in early 1993 and Nirvana said at the time that they wanted to create an album that was authentic and raw. 'Raw' is an interesting word as it indicates, like an abrasion or a cut, a place where the inside of the body becomes open to the world. One of the original working titles of In Utero was I Hate Myself and Want to Die. Death was linked with the album from its inception. In Utero means something like 'in the womb'. In some ways In Utero is a description of life. However some researchers note that the desire to return to the womb is a suicidal desire. Once you leave it you cannot go back without dying.
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You often seen the angel image on the cover of In Utero in a stylized or cartoon form these days. The original image is of a translucent female anatomical manikin where the inside of her body is visible. She has angel wings. The angel is framed against a cracked yellow background, like the colour of skin that has become broken because of sickness. The image is dual natured, abject and holy at the same time.
The back cover features images of fetuses strewn amidst woodland ground, life cast out from the body. Kurt Cobain noted that he was always someone who was fascinated by birth and death. The inside of the album features another female translucent anatomical mannikin, through this time without wings- an entirely abject image.
Nirvana released a video for Heart-Shaped Box from In Utero. The video is full of abjection imagery such as a young girl's white dress becoming contaminated by blood and the dress turning black, the colour of death. The video is dominated by a figure of a translucent angel, a figure with no skin, where the barrier between the inside and outside of the body has broken down.
Nirvana's Heart-Shaped Box
Cobain was a poet, and his lyrics cannot be straightforwardly interpreted. However In Utero appears to have several general themes that it engages with. Infectious disease and sickness are referenced throughout In Utero. In Heart-Shaped Box, Cobain talks about consuming cancer. Milk It is about ingesting the biological waste of viruses, while I Hate Myself and Want to Die references the idea of wanting to be infected and saturated with respiratory disease.
All of these things are about death crossing the body’s borders, about the barrier between inside and outside the body becoming ruptured. Childbirth and reproduction are also mentioned throughout, including the idea of the broken hymen in Heart-Shaped Box, which again is about the barrier between the inside and outside of the body breaking down. In terms of singing, one of the defining characteristics of In Utero is screaming and narrative breakdown, especially in songs like Scentless Apprentice.
The paradox of In Utero is that its healing effects stem from its negative vision
In Utero is very unusual in that it is a major work of pop culture that engages strongly with the theme of abjection. When it was released in the 1990s, people often associated Nirvana with superficial themes like teenage angst (Cobain references this in Serve the Servants). But In Utero is much darker than that. It is the vision of a developed artist confronting the theme of death infecting life.
In Utero has resonated with people throughout the decades and across the world. Just check the comments on any streaming site and you will see people say, again and again, that In Utero helped them deal with their own experiences of abjection. They will mention dark times in their lives, including the pandemic, drug addiction, self-harm, anorexia, the death of a child and the struggle of daily life. The paradox of In Utero is that its healing effects stem from its negative vision; from that dark image of the angel on the album’s cover, and on so many t-shirts.
A longer version of this piece can be found here
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