Ned Vizzini’s Five Favorite Songs
I always hate these lists; “who will care?” I despair. Perhaps you will if I do this:
- Limit myself to one band–limits are possibilities
- Tie each Nirvana song I pick into a memory
Strangely, they all seem to be about summer camp…
Nirvana - Heart-Shaped Box
I saw the ‘Heart-Shaped Box’ video out of the corners of my eyes on MTV when I was twelve. It scared me so much that I swore off music for two years and feared that it would destroy my mind.
Nirvana - Hairspray Queen
I had a friend in 5th grade who introduced me to Dungeons & Dragons but then turned into a dick in summer camp, once I became a wedge between him and girls. We used to sit in our platform tent and attempt to decipher the lyrics to this one: “At night, the Wiz go gaaaaaaaaaah?” (Unearthed journal entries reveal the proper lyrics to be “At night, the witch go gaaaaaaaaaawd.”)
Nirvana - Aero Zeppelin
That same 5th-grade friend and I (bleeding into 8th grade) spent another summer at camp going to the late-night parties in the rec hall, where we did dive bombs off the ping-pong table to ‘Aero Zeppelin’. Actually, I only remember myself doing the dive-bombs, probably in social self-defense.
Nirvana - Rape Me
Was it the same year at summer camp, or the one after? This time, one counselor—fat, black—listened to In Utero every single day. ‘Rape Me’ was, obvious to everyone, about MTV and the media raping an artist’s personal space, but I thought it was actually about a guy being raped. By a girl. But not that way. As if the guy couldn’t get laid like I couldn’t get laid (see the theme in summer camp?), so he just wanted a woman to throw him down and rape him.
Nirvana - All Apologies
The same year as ‘Rape Me’. When I heard “married / buried,” I had to ask the fat black counselor, “Who is this guy?”
“He’s dead,” the counselor said.
Ned Vizzini is the author of It’s Kind of a Funny Story (”insightful and utterly authentic” - New York Times Book Review), Be More Chill and Teen Angst? Naaah…. His work has been honored by the American Library Association, BookSense, and the New York Public Library and has been translated into five languages (forthcoming in Chinese). He lives in Brooklyn, NY.
First posted: Friday, February 23rd, 2007.
Leave a comment:
