What else should I be?
All apologies
What else could I say?
Everyone is gay
What else could I write?
I don't have the right
What else should I be?
All apologies
In the sun
In the sun I feel as one
In the sun
In the sun
Married
Buried
I wish I was like you
Easily amused
Find my nest to salt
Everything's my fault
I'll take all the blame
Aqua seafoam shame
Sunburn, freezer burn
Choking on the ashes of her enemy
In the sun
In the sun I feel as one
In the sun
In the sun
Married
Married
Married
Buried, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
All in all is all we are
All in all is all we are
All in all is all we are
All in all is all we are
All in all is all we are
All in all is all we are
All in all is all we are
All in all is all we are
All in all is all we are
All in all is all we are
All in all is all we are
All in all is all we are
All in all is all we are
All in all is all we are
All in all is all we are
All in all is all we are
All in all is all we are
All in all is all we are
All in all is all we are
All in all is all we are
All apologies
What else could I say?
Everyone is gay
What else could I write?
I don't have the right
What else should I be?
All apologies
In the sun
In the sun I feel as one
In the sun
In the sun
Married
Buried
I wish I was like you
Easily amused
Find my nest to salt
Everything's my fault
I'll take all the blame
Aqua seafoam shame
Sunburn, freezer burn
Choking on the ashes of her enemy
In the sun
In the sun I feel as one
In the sun
In the sun
Married
Married
Married
Buried, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
All in all is all we are
All in all is all we are
All in all is all we are
All in all is all we are
All in all is all we are
All in all is all we are
All in all is all we are
All in all is all we are
All in all is all we are
All in all is all we are
All in all is all we are
All in all is all we are
All in all is all we are
All in all is all we are
All in all is all we are
All in all is all we are
All in all is all we are
All in all is all we are
All in all is all we are
All in all is all we are
Lyrics submitted by bonj, edited by zackjubjub, muddywater, LivieP, ciararavenblaze, WoodyJr, Elizabethp22
"All Apologies" as written by Kurt Cobain
Lyrics © BMG Rights Management
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"What else should I be
All apologies"
Most get this, this is like, what else can I be? To put it in today's terms, should I be like Pearl Jam and just make forgettable records a decade after anyone cares about them anymore, or be like U2 and criss cross between techno and saving the world?
"What else should I say
Everyone is gay"
Many times Kurt wrote in an abstract and intuitive way. And other times, he was blatantly direct. This is one of those times. This line has nothing to do with being happy or whatever bullshit people are telling themselves. It means exactly what you all deep down know it means. Everyone has homoerotic feelings. Everyone. Get over it. So what else do you cretins want me to say? How about this!
"What else could I write
I don't have the right"
He mentioned in his suicide note that he didn't have the right to write music if he no longer felt the passion anymore.
"What else should I be
All apologies
In the sun
In the sun I feel as one
In the sun
In the sun
I'm married
buried"
Most people get this. The sun is the equivalent of being dead, and feel as one is being free. Married and buried? Maybe that's what comes to us all? Or maybe that's what makes you feel as one? Or perhaps both. Nirvana lyrics frequently had double meanings
"I wish I was like you
Easily amused
Find my nest of salt"
He wishes he could be like most people, and be happy with their TV's and beer and strip clubs. Or be like most celebrities, and be happy with the money, fame, drugs, and whores. He can't
"Everything is my fault
I'll take all the blame"
Again, this is very direct, and means exactly what it seems. No one is responsible for Kurt's suicide besides Kurt, and no one should feel responsible. This seems like it could be sarcastic, but it's not. Sarcasm generally doesn't litter suicide notes, sincerity does (as well as self-loathing)
"Aqua seafoam shame
Sunburn with freezerburn
Choking on the ashes of her enemy"
This is a little tougher, as it's very much on the abstract side. "Aqua seafoam shame" would seem to indicate shame that goes out to the ocean like ashes. "Sunburn with freezerburn" seems to indicate something akin to a double edge sword, or between a rock and a hard place. You get burned both ways. Maybe that's how he viewed being a famous band versus being an underground band? And "choking on the ashes of her enemy" would seem to go in line with "aqua seafoam shame," meaning the ashes of the enemy of mother nature will go out to be part of it. It's a self-loathing view. It has nothing to do with Courtney Love.
"All alone is all we are (x14)"
I changed it to what it really says. "All in all is all we are" means absolutely nothing. "All alone is all we are" means exactly what it says. We're all alone in this world. He says it very clearly, especially at the last line when the instruments go off. Listen closely to Kurt's final message to the world if you want to know what All Apologies says
As if he's giving up hope on humanity.
the phrase you are referring to "all alone is all we all are" he used only one time and was at the MTV unplugged show.
As for muddywater above, the dude IS right, he does seem to say something very close to "alone."
"All in all is all we are" may be a reference to the Pixies song "Levitate Me" which includes the lyrics "If all in all is true" which is repeated several times.
If not, then my interpretation is that it's sort of like saying that, overall, humans are just sort of *here*, nothing more. Everything we've done or will do boils down to just us existing or not existing, anything else is getting into specifics.
>"What else should I say
Everyone is gay"
Many times Kurt wrote in an abstract and intuitive way. And other times, he was blatantly direct. This is one of those times. This line has nothing to do with being happy or whatever bullshit people are telling themselves. It means exactly what you all deep down know it means. Everyone has homoerotic feelings. Everyone. Get over it. So what else do you cretins want me to say? How about this!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I don't care that this post is from 7 years ago. I'm going to just say: absolutely NOT is this Kurt saying that everyone has homoerotic feelings. I feel like you'd have to have such a poor knowledge of his character to think he was being literal. He is using the term gay DEROGATORILY----Kurt was a MISANTHROPE. He was simply saying that he feels that everyone is disgenuine, chirpy, and just unbearable. It has nothing to do with fucking homoeroticism, jesus christ. I don't know why this annoyed me so much, but it feels like it's coming from someone that knows so little about Kurt.
I don't care if this post is months old. I'm just going to say, Cobain thought being gay, bisexuality, lesbian, what have you was completely natural. His mother was a homophobic lady (possibly, much like you!). He is using the word gay--literally. (Did you see how I didnt have to use caps to get my point across? "I feel like you have to have such a poor knowledge of his character" to think he was saying otherwise. I don't know why the word gay makes you so angry, I hope all is better with you in the end. Check out "Kurt Cobain on Identity" on youtube: Cobain had a gay best friend, his only male friend during his childhood and his homophobic mother took that away. His high school friends were female--this dude loved women! If anything, he was one of the many that kept promoting female empowerment in rock and roll. Literally, no one knows this. What you see on stage is not always what it seems. Despite him being a part of American rock, he couldn't understand why a lot of Aerosmith and Led Zepelin had them talking about their dicks and "bitch" and sexism (Dont get me wrong, im a woman and I love them, it was just the norm of the era). I don't think you know as much as you think about Cobain (none of us do), but what does it matter? This song is about death, he was in pain, we can all relate to it in some way and disregard what may have been something insulting to you, but a vital aspect in someone life.
Some other interpretations:
The sun part (married, buried) to me does invoke death, but also the personification of it. It's a popular enough trope, and it always reminds me of something about marrying death. Can't quite remember but Emily Dickinson comes to mind. If that were to be true, then the "married, buried" part is obvious. By marrying death, you die.
The other one is the "sunburn with freezerburn." He mentions shame above, which could be the shame associated with suicide. Sunburn harkens back to the sun mentioned prior, which relates to death. As for freezerburn, what do you do with a dead body? It goes in the freezer. So maybe that's something.
Then, all in all and all alone we are. In life, in death.
That's about it, but mostly I disagree heavily with the homoerotic assumption.
He is definitely sad. I definitely think "Married, Buried" is pretty obvious. He was in a fucking shitty relationship with a disloyal whore by many accounts. The line "everyone is gay" can have at least 3 meanings, as was pointed out above: it can mean
1) everyone has homoerotic feelings
2) everyone is lame
3) everyone is happy (except him)
No one can ever know what he meant. Nor what the line "aqua sea foam shame means". However, he definitely DOES say "all IN ALL is all we are. This might sound foreign to a western world, but I'm pretty sure he is just saying that Oneness is the reality of the universe, and we are necessarily one another (literally). Brahman. Tao. Oneness. He is saying "the particle interpretation of the universe that the west promotes acting as if everything is distinct objects is false". What is true is that all things are the same thing. Physics is necessary to get much more precise (e.g. what is real is the electromagnetic field-- not the electron).
aside from being a song about guilt, self loathing and the feeling of worthlessness this song has everything to do with Courtney and that's why Kurt dedicated this song to his wife and new born baby at the 1992 Reading festival (which was by far one of the best shows Nirvana ever preformed).
you where right about one thing thus, and i quote "...Now that I've said that, I have to say I don't really know what the song is about...."
You give a very good mean to this song .. and this is one of my fav song .. wow .. Respect bro
"What else should I be
All apologies"
--asking if he should not be a star because he isn't a role modle
"What else should I say
Everyone is gay"
--asking if you blame him for being what we all want him to be...a rebell--for lack of a better word
"What else could I write
I don't have the right"
--it isn't his job to say Courtney is hooked on drugs though he admits he is---this meaning might be off..its an interesting line..but it would fallow with my theroy.
"What else should I be
All apologies"
--repeated...mainly he can't stop thinking its his fault
and the coures..
in the sun--his description of being high..sun..later he says Courtney is sunburned...(now you see my point)
in the sun i feel as one--when he is high he feels whole.
just my theroy..
I'm pretty sure that this was written well before he met Courtney Love anyway.
TV
It was a deliberate attempt to alienate the very people that had bought their records and put them where they were. The Album finishes with 'All apologies'. Basically a sarcastic retort to all the mugs who liked them for their 'pretty songs' and had bought this album, scratching their heads going WTF?!
It's like he's saying 'Not what you expected? Nevermind II? Sorry guys.....' with a wry grin on his face.
PS I think 'In Utero' is head and shoulders above 'Nevermind'
dooyoo.co.uk/music-records/nevermind-nirvana/1002028/
At the time Nevermind wrapped Kurt complained that it was a sellout, that it didn't have the raw honesty of "Bleach", a problem he would correct with "In Utero". The phrase "aqua seafoam" refers to the colors on Nevermind's album cover.
"What else should I be,
All apologies"
I always thought (after hearing the married/buried line) this song was from the perspective of a man trapped in an unhappy marriage, where he is constantly his wife's scapegoat. A guy that has been worn down with blame for so many years that he has come to accept his role as the source of everything wrong in their lives.
"What else could I say
Everyone is gay"
I imagined that he eventually came to feel like everyone was against him, and became cynical and worn out with people in general.
"What else could I write
I don't have the right"
This bit only makes sense if I think of the lyrics as his bitter suicide note to his family/wife. Exhausted, he is sarcastically saying that if he is such a monster that he doesn't even deserve to explain himself.
"In the sun, I feel as one."
By this point, my own assigned meaning to the song really starts to reach. I apologize, but move forward anyway! "In the sun" meaning under heat constantly. "Feel as one" could be a reference to the joining of he and his wife in marriage. So, with both considered, he is always under scrutiny in his marriage, always having to sweat it out.
"I'm married/Buried."
Well, that is pretty much the reason for the rest of my interpretation. Married and feeling utterly trapped.
"I wish I was like you
Easily amused
Find my nest of salt
Everything is my fault"
Get ready for some more stretching, because here I go! He is wishing that he could be as easily satisfied with assigning blame and dodging responsibility. The "nest of salt" meaning the home/habit people have made out of rubbing salt in his wounds; giving him problems because it is easier on them (namely his wife).
"I'll take all the blame,
Aqua sea foam shame,
Sunburn with freeze burn,
Choking on the ashes of her enemy"
Sigh, I can only suspect the ocean has something to do with the "nest of salt." Maybe, just maybe, meaning the relentless nature of the criticism, like the ceaseless tide?
The sun/freeze burn is somewhat an oxymoron to draw attention to the way his wife is leaving him alone and isolated by the constant heat she puts on him. The sunburn could be a reference to the earlier lyric "in the sun, I feel as one," explaining that all the blame he receives is catching up with his mental health/self esteem. The "freeze burn" meaning the cold, icy, relationship he now has with his wife.
"Choking on the ashes of her enemy" describes how she is growing tired with ripping him to shreds because he is no longer able to be hurt by it. He has lost feeling and become numb, which robs her of much of the satisfaction gained from hurting him.
"All alone is all we are"
Finally, his feelings that marriage only advertises lifelong companionship without ever providing it. Again, this is the cynical conclusion drawn in what could be a suicide note.