Released November 23, 2004 Length 4:24 Writer(s) Kurt Cobain | Recorded 1994 Label DGC Producer(s) Kurt Cobain | |
"Do Re Mi" is a song by American rock band Nirvana. It first appeared on the band's rarities box set, With the Lights Out, released in November 2004. A second version appears on the deluxe edition of Montage of Heck: The Home Recordings, released in November 2015.
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Composition and release
"Do Re Mi" is one of the last-known songs written by Kurt Cobain before his death in April, 1994. Cobain's widow, Courtney Love, described the song in a 1994 Rolling Stone interview, explaining that "It was the last thing he wrote on our bed. The chorus was 'Dough, Ray and me/Dough, Ray and me,' and then it was 'Me and my IV.' I had asked him after Rome to freeze his sperm. So there's this whole thing about freezing your uterus". To date, no version of the song featuring the re-written "Me and my IV" lyrics has been released.
In 2002, Jim DeRogatis was allowed to listen to the song and other unreleased recordings in Love's living room, and described it as boasting "a beautiful, Beatlesesque melody in the tradition of 'About a Girl,' the standout track from Bleach. In addition to an endearingly rough guitar solo, its other outstanding feature is the moaned/whined/chanted repetition of "Dough/Ray/Me, Do/Re/Mi" over and over during a long and climactic finale". In addition to the "solo acoustic demo taped in [Cobain's] bedroom" that he heard and described in the article, DeRogatis stated that a four track version, featuring Cobain on drums and vocals, Nirvana second guitarist Pat Smear on guitar, and Hole guitarist Eric Erlandson on bass, was also recorded.
The solo acoustic demo of the song was released on the band's rarities box set, With the Lights Out, in November 2004. The same version was re-released on the band's compilation album Sliver: The Best of the Box in November 2005.
A medley of previously unreleased demo versions, over 10 minutes long, appears on the deluxe edition of Montage of Heck: The Home Recordings, released in November 2015.
Reception
Dan Weiss of Spin described "Do Re Mi" as Cobain's "best posthumously released song — take that 'You Know You're Right.'" Collin Brennan of Consequence of Sound called it "the finest Cobain composition that never saw the light of day during his lifetime" and wrote, "If Paul McCartney was born a few decades later and opted for dirty flannel instead of a moptop, this is the kind of tune he might have spawned."