Courtney Love is a controversial figure.
As the lead singer of alt rock trailblazers Hole, she notched up a critically acclaimed debut,
a platinum-selling follow-up and a four-time Grammy nominated third album.
She produced rock radio staples like "Violet", "Miss World" and "Celebrity Skin"
but most know her for her famous husband and/or her less than personable public persona
As such she's gained a fair bit of scorn with accusations ranging from liar to murderer
Today I will be looking at some of the songs that have been inspired by Mrs. Love
"Liar, liar, liar"
Before forming Hole in 1989, Love was in a short-lived band called Pagan Babies
with a punk rocker named Kat Bjelland.
After this Bjelland formed Babes in Toyland.
Love has claimed that she was in a primordial version of the band before being kicked out
but the band have refuted this.
When Hole started getting attention in the early 90s
Love became known for her style of dress dubbed "kinder whore"
which consisted of torn white dresses and heavy makeup with dark eyeliner
Bjelland has always maintained that she invented the look.
The video for "Bruise Violet" from 1992 shows a Love-look-alike following Bjelland around dressed identically
while lyrics like:
makes the claims of plagiarism all the more pointed.
In the aftermath of Kurt Cobain's death things were certainly a bit raw for all involved.
While Krist Novoselic disappeared into a spiral of forgettable bands and local politics
drummer Dave Grohl made music.
All this rawness informed the new band's debut single:
"I don't owe you anything, I don't owe you anything"
For the music video, the initial brief featured the band being attacked
by a bloated charred inflatable girl representing Courtney
but Grohl's management vetoed the choice,
instead being replaced by a 3D representation of the HIV virus.
Asked about the song's target in 2009 Dave Grohl said:
The most damning lyrics are:
which paints her in the public perceived role of manipulator and liar.
After the royalty disputes that Love made against the surviving members of Nirvana
that chorus lyric became shockingly prescient.
According to Love, "Stacked Actors" off Nothing Left to Lose is also about her,
but Grohl has never confirmed this.
One of the most notorious supposed songs about Courtney Love is "Professional Widow".
The title itself, it fits.
The first lyrics are the following:
No doubt an unsubtle nod at her late husband
Additionally there are references to heroin which Love and Cobain had both been known to use frequently.
Then later the refrain repeats:
This alludes to Love's history of dating numerous famous alt rockers throughout the 90's.
When questioned in 1996 about it for Record magazine, Amos replied:
In 2003 while appearing on British news show Liquid News
following Love's recent arrest, Amos was tasked by the host with making a statement
on "Professional Widow".
Reporter: "What is it about her that might've fascinated you, if it is written about her?"
Amos: "I don't think 'fascinated' would be the word."
"I think that when you're part of a peer group"
"you learn things about each other, and there's a way that you treat people."
"And sometimes if you treat people in a certain way, maybe years later it comes around and bites you."
"Maybe."
Love herself is still not sure about the song.
In 2006, she is quoted having said:
Given the evidence it looks likely.
Though the song references Carly Simon's "You're So Vain",
Nine Inch Nails mastermind Trent Reznor has said conclusively
that "Starfuckers, Inc" is in fact about Mrs. Love.
There are a number of slights that Love had made against Reznor
that would make her a target of ire in his eyes.
After a fling between the couple in the early to mid 90s
Love made some less than polite comments about Reznor in Spin Magazine
most famously:
Reznor is also on record saying that Love had destroyed his relationship with Tori Amos.
This part is most likely being referenced in Reznor's
cribbing the title from Amos' "Professional Widow".
Other factors linking the song to love our lyrics like:
and most damning, the song's music video
where a gross, caricature of Love is shown complete in kinder whore chic.
Back in the 90s there were a minority of female fronted alt rock bands
But in the post-Nirvana boom there were few as successful as No Doubt
with their world-conquering Tragic Kingdom album.
Somehow amid this lead singer Gwen Stefani offended Love at some point
and that bitterness came out in a 2004 interview:
In response the Stefani told NME in March 2005:
"I heard you were talking shit, and you didn't think that I would hear it."
"Hollaback Girl" is that response song.
The second biggest song of 2005.
The 41st biggest song of the decade.
So yeah it's a pretty effective world-ruling fuck you
plus it taught a generation of kids how to spell "bananas".
Love later alleged that she had been seeing Stefani's future husband, Bush's Gavin Rossdale in 1996
a year after Stefani and him has started dating.
Whether Rossdale ever actually wrote a song about Love is up for debate
And now the person that knew her best: her late husband.
Love named "Heart Shaped Box" as her favourite Nirvana song
which is fitting as it's most definitely about her.
If it's a love song is an extremely caustic one with cryptic Cobain lyrics
that imply a lot of twisted pain and imagery of flesh-eating orchids, cancer
and being trapped.
It is not unfair to say that he feels like the relationship he is singing about is suffocating.
There are also references to astrology in the first verse
to Pisces and Cancer which are Cobain and Love's respective signs.
These lines are a reference to something Cobain had supposedly said in an argument with her
and while this could be just a fictional tale of marital suffocation
Love came out to confirm that not only is this song about her but
the heart-shaped box in question is her vagina.
After Lana Del Rey covered the song live in 2013, Love tweeted at her the following:
Of course there are more songs either reputedly or definitely about her.
Love has claimed that the majority of Smashing Pumpkins' Siamese Dream is about her
given that her and Billy Corgan dated briefly before she met Cobain
Other Pumpkins songs like "Where Boys Fear to Tread" and "Bodies" have an alleged Courtney connection
but Corgan has denied all of this.
She's also namechecked in "You Get What You Give" by the New Radicals and "Courtney" by Nerf Herder
Courtney Love made a lot of enemies and very few songs about her have anything nice to say.
In a way is impressively punk rock that she has rubbed so many people up the wrong way.
As a person she comes across as a tangled ball of ego, venom and fragility,
but as a musician she's probably most influential woman in 90s rock.
She is a controversial figure but nevertheless a fascinating one.
Thanks for watching.
I want to thank Wit and Folly for providing additional voices on this video.
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