I still can’t figure out The Theory behind Nirvana’s Lithium
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- Опубліковано 9 лют 2025
- At 16 years of age I knew then that the song Lithium was great. But now in my 40’s I still can’t figure out how Kurt Cobain came up with the chord progression. Maybe someday We’ll get some kind of insight into his song writing.
What I think it's mindblowing is the fact that the hole main chord progresion it's half in major scale and half in the minor. It's like a bipolar chord progresion, and what Do people with bipolarity do consume for their trastorn? Yeahh, lithium...
I think Kurt noticed the fact that the riff has mayor and a minor sound and for that reason he made a relationship between this song and bipolarity, and titled the song lithium
Good point also! Thanks for sharing!
Correct… MAybe Kurt Cobain took Lithium (Li) Element heheheh and then voila!, there’s the song… Yeah Creepy weird but interesting… Sounds good though…. Its just Dark.
Creep song is also doing some weird trick like this. I guess they freed their mind from rules and just translated emotions in to the vibes. They express their souls instead of trying to please others
It’s so funny to see people so proudly not know what they’re talking about
@@williamlandon906 ?
Correct..
Nirvana! Fav!
Its an G# Phrygian, the mother key is E major. the other one is in A minor or C major, remember He uses a power chord, that neither a major nor minor keys, power chords works on major and minor as well. Power chordss are neutral chords coz it doesnt have a 3rd… Good song one of my favorite as well… I bet Kurt Cobain didn’t care about theory of teh progression for as long maybe for him , as it sounds right for his hearing… That’s good enough tune for a song he’s up to… Sound screepy and wierd right, that’s because of the intervals from phrygian mode..
This is nowhere near G# phrygian. Firstly G# never feels home, then D in not in the scale.
The scale is E aeolien dominant, the 5th mode of the natural minor scale with a 2nd and 3rd major degree and 6th and 7th minor degree, hence the bipolarity of the chord progression
It’s cause there is no theory
I think that you may be selling Cobain short here.
He wrote a song that goes back and forth between Major (happy) and Minor (sad) keys in a way that feels natural to the person experiencing it, but anyone on the outside looking at the behaviors (reading the chord changes) can immediately see somethings weird, and he added lyrics about being bipolar and name the song after a drug that helps that specific mental illness.
Kurt played around a LOT with chromatic music. He was probably just doing that again, but when he realized the major/minor duality, he probably though that was cool and wrote some of his most coherent lyrics supporting it.
Kurt was a smart guy.
Actually there is😊