Nirvana – On a Plain

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  General Comment:I Love this song whean I hear it I can't stop listining to it.

  Flag Thunder64on April 10, 2013   Link

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  General Comment:heres what I think. I see depression alot of the lyrics, but tht might just be the way i feel. " Start this off without any words, got so high i scratched till i bled" obviously a drug user. "love myself better than you" that part i guess relates to the fact that when youre a druggie, in the end you do what it takes to get your fix no matter what. you want to feel that for yourself more than helping or pleasing anyone else, including those closest to you. "finest day ive ever had... cry on command". perhaps the day when one realizes and accepts their depression and can go on, however its always there and you can "cry on command". Im on a plain, i cant complain.. that can mean hes on a certain place, or stage (a plain if you will) of his life thats not so great, but it can always be worse. "my mother died every night" perhaps a mother who also suffered from depression, and he (whomever the song may be about) saw his mother in a sense die, every night. Black sheep got..forgot to put on zip code" this line makes me think of someone who feels they can never do anything right. theyre the black sheep and once again theyve screwed up by forgetting the zip code.
  (my favorite part of the song)"Somewhere i have heard this before" When you havent felt very much in a very long time and you get that tiny spark of an old feeling that you once felt somewhere before... "In a dream my memory is stored" You scan your memory trying to remember where youve felt that feeling before.. "as defense im neutered and spayed".. The world kicking you down again, just as youre about to make sense of things.(or life) "what the hell am i trying to say?" Society tells you that you make no sense and tells you to get over it, once youve heard this enough, you begin to question yoursef. "It is now time to make it unclear.write of lines..make sense." nothin really makes sense anymore, youre unable to sort out b.s. from fact. "One more message.. then i can go home" Theres just one more thing to take care of before you can check out.... sorry for that being so long. just had to put my ideas out there.

  Flag Guitarist3on August 09, 2012   Link

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  General Comment:I think the song is about Kurt Feeling so high of drugs that it's as if he's "on a plain" or 'plane' and "can't complain" cos at that point he feels amazing before the drug wears off. The double meaning of the "Plain" could be Kurt's desire to have everything normal again before all the fame.

  Flag AdamGray16on June 14, 2012   Link

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  General Comment:I have'nt got a clue what its about but I think its a cracking record and is the reason I stumbled across this website (while looking for the lyrics), not at all typical Nirvana/, I feel its uplifting.
  
  The start is excellent and its catchy all the way through. Awesome...from someone who has never really embraced rock music or indeed Nirvana. I agree with the first post will never get sick of hearing it..
  
  Visited Seattle two years back, almost Canadian not at all American.. I'm English mind..

  Flag blueulleton May 04, 2012   Link

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  General Comment:You people are right--he's wasted but not on weed. Scratched till I bleed That's heroin for sure histaminic release when you're too high.

  Flag fritzrxon April 25, 2012   Link

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    it could also be meth, but yeah.. being on heroin makes you itchy esp if you are coming off a high.

    Flag PTCGAZon December 31, 2012  
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  General Comment:He's just trying to say that he's high, he's writing a song, and he doesn't give a fuck.Almost everything is just random.
  "Somewhere I have heard this before
  In a dream my memory has stored
  As a defense I'm neutered and spayed
  What the hell am I trying to say"
  It's a feeling you have when you're high.Like you had a dream about it, or something.And you can't decide is it true, or it's just you being wasted.
  And he lost a track of his toughts.
  "I'm on a plain
  I can't complain
  I'm on a plain"
  high - again.

  Flag Ninethon September 11, 2011   Link

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  General Comment:I think the "I love myself, better than you" line is there to describe how much he doesn't like someone considering his lack of fulfillment with himself. Just something I noticed.

  Flag thePartyRoboton July 23, 2011   Link

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  My Interpretation:This song is one of my favourites because it defys the whole idea of a song having a meaning , like kurt said music first lyrics second . You can try and pick apart line by line what this song means and still come up with with maybe a handful of ideas , kurt openly says in this song he has no idea what he is saying , just follow the uplifting melody and maybe the answers simply are in your head . This song has personal implications somewhere , i scratch till i bled , still makes me think of kurts heroin use but so what , he seems so blissful in this song , his neurotic play on words is what makes this song a bubblegum pop meets heavy riff delight .

  Flag Madatheearth88on May 28, 2011   Link

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  General Comment:Actually if anything this song is more about heroin use/addiction
  got so high i scratched till i bled=heorin makes you itchy
  he must of been pretty high
  crying on command
  crying makes one feel better so would heroin
  I love myself bettter than you
  i get more satisfaction shooting smack than i do being with you
  "hedonism"
  
  "I'm on a plain"
  ive had enough smack that im high enough to not complain
  i could be higher
  but i cant complain cause im high enough
  its a pretty standard high
  it's plain
  
  then the what the hell am i trying to say part
  it the heroin making it hard to speak
  making you incoherent
  
  then the part about nothing making sense
  goes back to heroin does anything have to make sense to anyone when youre loaded
  the only people who drugs make sense to are those who've done it themselves
  then back to i love my self
  its wrong that the heroin treats him better than his girl
  but really what can he do

  Flag jorge1993on March 28, 2011   Link

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  General Comment:Actually I once read that Kurt Cobain started developing this song while sitting "On a Plain" - a Jet Airplane that is. Nirvana had flown down to LA to sign their first contract with GEFFEN Records and they were seated on the return flight to Seattle, waiting on the runway for take-off from LA. And when a struggling band from a small town does what only a handful out of every 1,000 bands manage to do (fly to LA for free to sign a nice recording contract with a major record label) then it's quite understandable if the band's musical leader "...can't complain".
  
  Also, several of the previous posts are correct in that this song is at least partially about drugs. Possibly heroin, but at this point in time it may have more likely been Vicodin/Lortab (hydrocodone) or similar Rx painkillers, or even Codeine cough syrup, all of which Cobain was reportedly using around the time of writing and recording the 'Nevermind' album. All opiate drugs have a tendency to produce mild to moderate itching as a very common, but normally minor, allergic reaction to the opiate chemicals - although the lyric "...scratched till I bled" suggests something more intense, perhaps dose-related.
  
  The lyric "my mother died every night" might refer to the sometimes physically abusive relationship between Cobain's mother and her second husband (Kurt's step-father). Kurt's age and slight build and his related inability to do much about this abuse may have also tied in with the lyric "neutered and spayed" signifying his feelings of powerlessness as a "macho man, ass-kicking" protector of his mother.
  
  I've read that the line "...quote me on that" is from a sort of running-joke or catch-phrase that became popular among the band members and those working with them on the recording sessions for 'Nevermind'.
  
  Kurt was known to keep notebooks where he developed a bedtime practice of writing down various phrases that he had thought of that day and found interesting. These were not complete song lyrics for the most part, just an assortment of phrases, images and random ideas that he accumulated over the years - later reported to completely fill several large notebooks. Kurt said that he often went to these collections when in need of a line or two of lyrics for a song he was putting together. BTW, I have heard that all of these notebooks are now the property of Courtney Love, and that she has (amid some controversy) recently had several such volumes of Kurt's notebooks published for retail sale.

  Flag ThomasJon February 06, 2011   Link

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