Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Where did you sleep last night?

As a Nirvana fan I was aware that the final song from their unplugged session, 'Where did you sleep last night?', was a cover of a Leadbelly track but I had never taken the time to check out the original. I know, shame on me! Well, I finally got around to picking up a cd and it's been a really pleasant surprise. I've been on a bit of a blues crusade lately, Son House, Skip James, Blind Willie Johnson, Bessie Smith, Robert Johnson (more on him another time) & I find Leadbelly to be a lot poppier than the other artists. You can hear it in this track, the basic strum, the chord structure , verse/chorus/verse, it's all pop. This may have been what attracted Kurt to him in the first place, as Nirvana's music is basically just high end pop artfully hidden behind noise, but I guess we'll never know.
Anyway, I put this track up because I think it's hauntingly beautiful in a way that only these old blues tracks seem to be. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do:

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