"Polly" is a song by the American rock band Nirvana, written by vocalist and guitarist Kurt Cobain. It is the sixth song on their second album Nevermind, released by DGC Records in September 1991.
The song was written about the abduction, rape, and torture of a 14-year-old girl returning home from a punk rock concert in Tacoma, Washington in 1987. Written from the perspective of the perpetrator, "Polly" has frequently been cited as evidence of Cobain's support of feminism and women's rights.
Early history
Originally titled "Hitchhiker" and later "Cracker", "Polly" dates back to at least 1987. The earliest known version is a home demo featuring Cobain on vocals and guitar. This version was released posthumously on the Nirvana rarities box set, With the Lights Out, in November 2004.
The song was first performed live on June 23, 1989, at Rhino Records in Westwood, Los Angeles. It was first recorded in the studio in August 1989 by Steve Fisk at Music Source in Seattle, Washington. The sessions were for a planned EP to coincide with the band's European tour, but only two of the five songs recorded, "Stain" and "Been a Son," were officially released, on the Blew EP later that year. Unreleased during the band's lifetime, this version of "Polly" also appeared on With the Lights Out.
On October 26, 1989, the band recorded a version during their first BBC Peel Session, at Maida Vale Studios in London, England. The four-song session, engineered by Ted de Bono, was originally broadcast on November 22, 1989.
Nevermind
"Polly" was re-recorded by Butch Vig at Smart Studios in Madison, Wisconsin in April 1990. This acoustic version, featuring Chad Channing on drums, later appeared on the band's major label debut, Nevermind, released in September 1991. It was the only recording from Vig's original session with the band to appear on the album, the rest of which was recorded by Vig in May 1991 at Sound City Studios in Van Nuys, California.
The recording featured Cobain playing a five-string Stella guitar that he said he purchased from a pawn shop for $20. "I didn't bother changing the strings," Cobain told Jeff Gilbert in a 1992 Guitar World interview. "It barely stays in tune. In fact, I had to use duct tape to hold the tuning keys in place." According to Vig, the guitar's "strings were so old they didn't have any tone to them. A real plunky sound." Cobain's guitar and Krist Novoselic's bass were recorded live, after which Cobain recorded lead and harmony vocals, and then Channing added the cymbal crashes.
According to Vig in the 2005 Classic Albums: Nirvana - Nevermind documentary, Cobain accidentally sang the first two words of the third verse, "Polly said," too early, during the instrumental break, but the band decided to leave it in. However, earlier versions of the song also feature this line, including the original home demo, the 1989 Peel version, and most pre-Nevermind live versions.
Post-Nevermind
The band recorded another version of the song for the BBC on November 9, 1991, at Maida Vale in London during their appearance on Radio 1's Mark Goodier Radio Session. The session, their last for the BBC, was first broadcast on November 18, 1991, and three of the four songs from the session, including "Polly", appeared on the band's compilation album Incesticide in December 1992. This faster version of the song appeared under the title "(New Wave) Polly."
In December 1992, a live version of the song, recorded at Del Mar Fairgrounds in Del Mar, California on December 28, 1991, was released as a b-side on the forth single for Nevermind, for the song, "In Bloom".
An acoustic version of "Polly", featuring Pat Smear on second guitar and Lori Goldston on cello, was performed during Nirvana's MTV Unplugged appearance at Sony Music Studios in New York City on November 18, 1993.
The last live performance of "Polly" was at Nirvana's final concert, at Terminal 1 in Munich, Germany, on March 1, 1994.