Come as You Are

Written by Cobain, it was one of the few new songs on the rehearsal tape the band sent Vig before the Nevermind sessions. It was recorded at Sound City Studios in Van Nuys. Cobain played his solo in two takes and sang three vocal takes, of which the first was used, and Vig then had him double-track the whole song. In one harmony overdub he sang the line about not having a gun by accident, and the line stayed. A Small Clone chorus pedal gives the song its watery tone. Cobain called the lyrics contradictory and said the song was about people and what they are expected to act like.

The riff resembles Killing Joke's Eighties, and Cobain was nervous about releasing it for that reason. Danny Goldberg said that everyone still thought it the better song, and Killing Joke later complained. The Damned's Life Goes On, from 1982, has a similar riff. The single reached 32 on the Billboard Hot 100 and 9 in the UK.

Video and afterlife

Kevin Kerslake directed the video, filmed from 16 to 20 January 1992 in an Air National Guard hangar at Van Nuys Airport. It is an homage to the Nevermind cover. In his 2021 book The Storyteller Grohl wrote that he can no longer watch it. The band played an acoustic version at MTV Unplugged, and it is on MTV Unplugged in New York. In 2005 a sign reading Welcome to Aberdeen: Come As You Are went up in Cobain's hometown.