#Where did you sleep last night

[linusbenjamin]

Kurt Cobain Where Did You Sleep Last Night? | 1994

[k-i-l-l-e-r-b-e-e-6-9]

Nirvana - Where Did You Sleep Last Night

[unavary]

nirvana

[agirlnamedbone]

Kosuke Ajiro | "Where Did You Sleep Last Night" | 2014

[hauntedrose555]

[bruiseviolethands]

i hope you can hear me from up there mom

[paceypeternathanslawyer]

One Tree Hill Meme {73/187} Season 4 Episode 6: Where Did You Sleep Last Night Nathan & Haley In Every Episode

[unevaguedeprintemps]

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Nirvana

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[rustbeltjessie]

My girl, my girl, don’t you lie to me—

Where Did You Sleep Last Night (also known as “In the Pines,” “Black Girl / Black Gal,” and “My Girl”) is a bit of a confusing one. Is it a murder ballad, or a death song? Someone in it is dead, and has died in a horrific way, but exactly who has died changes depending on the version you’re listening to, as does the way in which the victim died, and who is responsible for their death. And who is singing this song? The killer, someone that knows the killer, an omniscient third party? There are point-of-view shifts all over the place. My girl, my girl, don’t lie to me / tell me where did you sleep last night? That’s how the song begins. In the pines, in the pines, where the sun don’t ever shine, she replies, I shivered the whole night through. Most of the stanzas in the version I am referencing follow this formula, alternating between the person speaking to the ‘girl,’ and the girl’s responses. All save one, which starts: Her husband was a hard working man. In that one verse, the singer takes a different point of view entirely.

Some of these confusing aspects may stem from the fact that the song we now know as “Where Did You Sleep Last Night” is a mashup of two older ballads: “In the Pines” and “The Longest Train.” Some versions of the song reference the train explicitly, and state that the victim was decapitated by a train. In others, such as the one I’m most familiar with, the only reference to a train is that [his] head was found in a driving wheel. And in still others, the cause of death is reattributed and no reference to trains is made at all. Similarly, the person fleeing into the pines changes from version to version. In most, including this one, it is a woman, but why she is fleeing or what she is fleeing from is not made explicit. Is she fleeing her rapist? Is she a murderer, or the witness to a murder? Did she commit some other transgression that she is hiding from the repercussions of? Or are the pines simply a metaphor? My girl could be running from life and into death, or from chastity and into (her) sexuality.

I find that all these inconsistencies and mysteries only add to the song’s beauty and sadness. It’s easier to imagine yourself as the one in the pines when you can ascribe your own personal reasons for running—and your own personal places to run to—to the song’s protagonist, and that makes the song even more haunting. Speaking of: to my ear, Leadbelly’s 1944 recording is the most haunting take—his quavering voice, the scratchy blues guitar—though Nirvana’s 1993 MTV Unplugged version is also essential. Listen, and shiver the whole night through.

—Jessie Lynn McMains, from “I guess there’s just a meanness in this world.” (Murder Ballads and Death Songs) (October 2021)

[rastronomicals]

2:55 PM EDT March 18, 2024:

Nirvana - "Where Did You Sleep Last Night" From the album MTV Unplugged in New York

Last song scrobbled from iTunes at Last.fm

[thewaymouth]

HOLE - Rumours, Lies And Media Rape

1993-1995 Live Compilation (Hellenbach Records)

Where Did You Sleep Last Night?

(Leadbelly cover)

[seymourmusicclub]

Leadbelly - Where Did you Sleep Last Night

[beyourselfchulanmaria]

Nirvana - Where Did You Sleep Last Night (Live On MTV Unplugged Unedited)

[conscience-killer]

I was tagged by @prince-luffy who is a very good egg. Also I'm in a waffling mood so there may be waffling. I might also be drunk.

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

25. Eight years of writing. Twenty-fucking-five. That's pretty pathetic lol.

2. What’s your total word count?

112,442. Almost a novel. Probably. It's a lot of cocks either way.

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Always Sunny currently, Preacher and Gotham in the past.

4. Top 5 fics by kudos:

1 - The Bird and the Worm

2 - Checkmate

3 - From Despair to Where

4 - Nice Guys Finish Last

5 - Lost Souls Forever

All Gotham, although Figure It Out is almost catching up with LSF which makes me happy. There's quite a bit of of novice cringe in that list, so click at your own peril. I guess we all had to learn somewhere.

6. What’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Where Did You Sleep Last Night? for sure. Honourable mentions to Comeback Kid and Time to Pretend, though.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

All His Suits Are Torn. :)

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Nah. Never written for a popular enough fandom.

9. Do you write smut?

Does the Pope shit in the woods?

10. Do you write crossovers?

Never fancied it. I've always preferred to stick as close to canon as I can. Alternate scenarios to episodes and scenes have always been my jam.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I'm aware of. More gifs than I can count though, sigh.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Again, not that I'm aware of. Years ago someone asked to translate Checkmate (I think?) to another language but I never saw anything of it. Maybe I didn't look hard enough.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I don't think I ever would have considered co-writing if I'd never met @constant-sinner. Our styles and kinks and preferences just gel so well.

Please check out our most recent collab: My God Is the Sun. We hadn't worked together since Evol in 2019 and it still just flowed so nicely. I do love me some shameless plugs.

14. What’s your all time favorite ship?

You can pry Cricksden from my cold, dead hands. A third of their fics on ao3 are mine and that pleases me greatly.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you will?

Father of All Motherfuckers was my only wip but it got shitcanned because I just didn't have the time (or the ideas, lol). Not If You Were the Last Junkie on Earth rose from its ashes and honestly I'm happy about that. I really enjoyed writing it. I have toyed with the idea of a set of confessional fics using some of its remnants too, but ehhh. Maybe.

16. What are your writing strengths?

As Raymond says, whimsical blasphemy.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I've never been a fan of dialogue. Some of my stories have masses of it which leads me to believe I was possessed by some sort of loquacious demonic entity at the time. Junkie had zero dialogue and that wasn't even a conscious decision, but goddamn it felt nice.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language?

If I could speak more than a few words of another language, sure.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Gotham.

20. Favorite fic you’ve ever written?

Blasphemy (The Victimless Crime). It probably always will be. That fic helped me a lot and led to more fun than I could have ever envisioned. I owe it a motherfucking shitload.

tagging: @jessicorvus @bensonstablers and any other fic-writing mutual whose name may or may not have disappeared into my glass of Baileys. Salut.