Where Did You Sleep Last Night

It is a traditional American folk song, also known as In the Pines, whose authorship is unknown and which dates to at least the 1870s in the Southern Appalachians. Bill Monroe recorded it in 1941 and 1952, and Lead Belly recorded it in the 1940s. Cobain is among those who wrongly credit Lead Belly as its author. He introduced the Unplugged performance as by his favorite performer. Cobain had played guitar on Mark Lanegan's version on The Winding Sheet in 1990. His arrangement most closely resembles Lead Belly's 1944 Musicraft recording, which Lanegan owned on a 78.

Nirvana played it as the last song of the Unplugged taping on 18 November 1993. It was meant as a B-side for the Pennyroyal Tea single, which was cancelled. It appeared instead on MTV Unplugged in New York in November 1994 and went out as a promotional single. The producers wanted an encore, but Cobain felt the band could not top it.

Reception

Allen Ginsberg praised the performance's artistry in 1994. Neil Young described the final screamed verse as unearthly, like a werewolf. In The Atlantic in 2013, Andrew Wallace Chamings wrote that it ranks among the greatest single rock performances of all time. The BBC series Seven Ages of Rock called it a surreal requiem in 2007.