"Come as You Are" is a song by American rock band Nirvana, written by frontman and guitarist Kurt Cobain. It is the third track and the second single from the band's second studio album Nevermind (1991), with the single released on February 18, 1992. It was the band's second and final American Top 40 hit, reaching number 32 on the Billboard Hot 100. It was also their second UK Top 10 hit, reaching number 9 on the UK Singles Chart. The single reached the Top 10 in nine countries and the Top 40 in ten additional countries.
The unexpected success of the album's lead single, "Smells Like Teen Spirit", propelled Nirvana to mainstream success, with Nevermind being released two weeks later. Following the album's release, the band and its management company debated whether to release "Come as You Are" or "In Bloom" as the next single from the album due to Cobain's concerns over the similarity of the former with the song "Eighties" (1984) by English post-punk band Killing Joke. After some persuasion by the management, Cobain agreed to release "Come as You Are" as the second single because of its commercial potential. Killing Joke was upset over the song and there were rumors that a lawsuit had been filed alleging copyright infringement, though the suit never materialized. Killing Joke guitarist Geordie Walker was reportedly upset about the whole situation and felt that Nirvana handled the matter poorly. Similarities between "Come as You Are" and "Life Goes On" by English punk band the Damned have also been noted.
The music video for "Come as You Are" was directed by Kevin Kerslake, who drew inspiration for it from the cover artwork of Nevermind. Rolling Stone ranked "Come as You Are" 452nd on its list of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time" in 2010, and the song placed 445th on the 2021 edition of the list.
Background and recording "Come as You Are" was one of the few new songs Nirvana recorded onto the rehearsal tape the group sent to producer Butch Vig prior to the recording of Nevermind in 1991. The group recorded the song with Vig during album sessions at Sound City Studios in Van Nuys, California, in early 1991. Cobain recorded his guitar solo in two takes, as well as three takes of vocals, of which the first was used. Vig then asked Cobain to double track his vocals throughout the entire song. During the harmony overdub session, Cobain accidentally sang the phrase "No, I don't have a gun", appearing the fourth time he sings the word "memoria" after the guitar solo. When this mistake was discovered, Cobain decided to keep it in the final recording. Vig sampled Cobain singing "memoria" from the middle of the song and placed it in the background of the song near the end twice. The band also performed an acoustic version of the song during their MTV Unplugged performance on November 18, 1993. The recording later appeared on the live album of the performance, released about a year later in November 1994.
Composition and lyrics "Come as You Are" is an alternative rock song that lasts for a duration of three minutes and thirty-eight seconds. According to the sheet music published at Musicnotes.com by BMG Rights Management, it is written in the time signature of common time, with a heavy rock tempo of 120 beats per minute. "Come as You Are" is composed in the key of E minor, and Kurt Cobain's vocal range spans one octave and one note, from a low of E3 to a high of F4. The song alternates between the chords of E5 and D5 during the verses and Esus4 and G in the pre-chorus, while in the chorus it changes to the chord progression of A–C5. It begins with Cobain playing an unaccompanied guitar riff for eight seconds. Cobain used an Electro-Harmonix Small Clone guitar chorus pedal to give his instrument a "watery" or "echoey" tone during the verses and pre-choruses, and as a result the pedal has been associated with the song ever since. He is joined by the rest of the band for the first verse, which is moody and subdued. Once the band reaches the chorus, the song reaches full volume. The shift in dynamics is a technique Nirvana used on many of its songs. The song features one of Cobain's longest guitar solos. "Kurt really did not play a lot of solos," Vig said. "This one is more of a melodic part based on the vocal melody. It's not trying to show off pyrotechnics. It complements the melody of the song."
Many have speculated that the song is about heroin, which Cobain was struggling with at the time of writing and recording. The lyrics "Come doused in mud, soaked in bleach" speak directly to a Seattle-area HIV prevention campaign from the time which encouraged addicts to sterilize their needles with bleach before using them with the tagline "If doused in mud, soak in bleach". The lyrics "As a friend, as a trend, as a known enemy", for some, were a further allegory for addiction to the drug. After Cobain's death, Sub Pop records approached G. Alan Marlatt at the University of Washington to set up a memorial fund to establish an addiction treatment center titled the "Come as You Are" center, but the funding fell through after the record label was sold to Warner Music Group.
Cobain described the lyrics of "Come as You Are" as contradictory, and said the song was about "people and what they're expected to act like." Pointing to the line "Take your time, hurry up, choice is yours, don't be late," essayist Catherine J. Creswell writes that in Cobain's lyrics, clump into strings of empty clichés whose own ostensible meaning is forced into contradictions or simple rhyme sound."Ulrich, John M.; Harris, Andrea L. Genxegesis: Essays on Alternative Youth (sub)culture. Popular Press. 2003. p. 81.
In light of Cobain's suicide in 1994, AllMusic's Mark Deming suggests that hearing "Cobain sing 'and I swear that I don't have a gun' gives 'Come as You Are' an edge it was never meant to have when [Nevermind] was first released in 1991." Deming reasons that the "I don't have a gun" lyric is Cobain's "attempt to reassure listeners that ... his target is the world at large rather than the individuals in it, and that there was still room in this damaged world for everyone." Others have suggested the lyrics regarding the "gun" are metaphors for escapism and turmoil found in heroin usage.
Release
Wary of the similarity between the main riff of "Come as You Are" and English post-punk band Killing Joke's 1985 single "Eighties", Nirvana and its management were unsure about releasing the song as the second single from Nevermind. Danny Goldberg, head of Nirvana's management Gold Mountain, later revealed that "[w]e couldn't decide between 'Come as You Are' and 'In Bloom.' Kurt was nervous about 'Come as You Are' because it was too similar to a Killing Joke song but we all thought it was still the better song to go with. And, he was right, Killing Joke later did complain about it."Borzillo-Vrenna, Carrie. "Nirvana Pay Back Killing Joke" . Rolling Stone. April 10, 2003. Retrieved on October 1, 2008. Nirvana biographer Everett True writes that "Come as You Are" was eventually chosen for release as a single because "Goldberg favoured the more obviously commercial song".
It was anticipated that the first single from Nevermind, "Smells Like Teen Spirit", would be a "base-building alternative cut", while "Come as You Are" would be able to cross over into other radio formats. However, "Smells Like Teen Spirit" became a surprise hit and boosted the band's popularity, whereas "Come as You Are" served to maintain it. After its release as a single in the US on February 18, 1992, "Come as You Are" peaked at number 32 on the Billboard Hot 100. The single stayed on the chart for 18 weeks."Come As You Are". Rolling Stone. December 9, 2004. Retrieved on June 4, 2008. The song also reached number three on the Billboard Mainstream and Modern Rock Tracks charts.[ Nirvana Artist Chart History: Singles]. Billboard.com. Retrieved on June 4, 2008. The single also broke the top 10 of the UK Singles Chart, peaking at the ninth spot,Roberts, David, ed. British Hit Singles & Albums. 19th edition. HIT Entertainment, 2006. . where it was also the week's highest new entry. In Israel, it was voted in at number 3 on the IBA's "Voice of Israel" singles chart. The song ranked number 82 in Blenders "The 500 Greatest Songs Since You Were Born", and 452nd on Rolling Stones "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time". In 2019, the song was placed at number 17 on Rolling Stones ranking of all 102 Nirvana songs.
Although the members of Killing Joke claimed the main guitar riff of "Come as You Are" plagiarized the riff of "Eighties", the band reportedly did not file a copyright infringement lawsuit, which Rolling Stone magazine attributed to "personal and financial reasons". However, conflicting reports state that Killing Joke did in fact file a lawsuit, but that it was either thrown out of court"Conspiracy of Two". Kerrang!. April 12, 2003 or dropped following Cobain's death."Interview with Killing Joke's Geordie". BBC. Retrieved on October 1, 2008. In a December 1994 interview, Geordie Walker, Killing Joke's guitarist, said that the band was "very pissed off about [the song being plagiarized], but it's obvious to everyone. We had two separate musicologists' reports saying it was. Our publisher sent their publisher a letter saying it was and they went 'Boo, never heard of ya!', but the hysterical thing about Nirvana saying they'd never heard of us was that they'd already sent us a Christmas card!"Slater, Tim. "Killing Joke interview". Guitarist. December 1994.
Later it was also noted that a third song, "Life Goes On", from English punk band the Damned's 1982 album Strawberries, pre-dated both and contained a similar riff to both songs.
In 1999, "Come as You Are" was voted number 49 in Kerrang! magazine's "100 Greatest Rock Tracks Ever!". As of April 2016, according to Business Insider, "Come as You Are" was the sixth most streamed song from the 1990s on Spotify. According to Nielsen Music's year-end report for 2019, "Come as You Are" was the third most-played song of the decade on mainstream rock radio with 134,000 spins. All of the songs in the top 10 were from the 1990s. The song had been streamed two billion times on Spotify by April 2026.
Music video The music video was directed by Kevin Kerslake, who later directed the videos for "Lithium", "In Bloom", and "Sliver", as well as the music video for Pantera's "This Love". After the unsatisfactory experience filming the "Smells Like Teen Spirit" video with Samuel Bayer, Cobain selected Kerslake due to his impressionistic style. Cobain was unable to formulate any ideas beyond homaging the Nevermind album cover and including "a lot of purples and reds", so he let Kerslake conceptualize the video. Filming took place from January 16 to 20, 1992. The band shot outdoor footage in Wattles Park in Hollywood Hills a few days prior to the main video shoot. This took place in an Air National Guard hangar at Van Nuys Airport. Kerslake projected this footage in the background of many shots in the main part of the video.
The video features the band in a dark room, where the appearance of falling water in front of the band distorts and blurs the band members' forms (an idea suggested by Cobain). Throughout the video, clips such as cells multiplying at an incredible rate and an unborn organism in its embryonic stages are shown. The video also features Cobain swinging violently on a chandelier as water begins to flow into the room as well as a dog wearing a cone collar trying to go down stairs, a baby swimming underwater (a reference to the cover of Nevermind), and a pistol sinking. Towards the end, a clip of the band appears, with Cobain in the front, lying on the ground and kissing the camera.