Nirvana: Radio Friendly Unit Shifter Meaning

Radio Friendly Unit Shifter Lyrics

Use just once and destroy
Invasion of our piracy
Afterbirth of a nation
Starve without your skeleton key

I love you for what I am not
I do not want what I have got
A blanket acne'ed with ciggarette burns
Speak at once while taking...

1. anonymous

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   Aug 23rd 2020 !⃝

   I think partially it's about Killing Joke. This riff from Money Is Not Our God. Speaking about rip offs, just listen to Age of Greed and you'll see who started first.
2. anonymous

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   Jun 17th 2011 !⃝

   Some fans will say this song is a throwaway, a typical B-side, but I don't feel that way. I see it more as a semi-cryptic send-up of everything that was going wrong in Cobain's life at this time: His inability to deal with fame (I do not want what I have got), the pressures of the music industry (use just once and destroy), his marriage and daughter (bi-polar opposites attack, all of a sudden my water broke), his bi-polar disorder (speak at once, while taking turns), and his critics (this had nothing to do with what you think, if you ever think at all). He knows how lucky he is to have the success he does, but he's not enjoying any of it. All of this crescendos with his repetition of "What is wrong with me?!!" As with many other Nirvana songs, we are given a brief glimpse into Cobain's troubled mind, and I do believe that the lyrics meant something to him (his claiming otherwise was more a product of his mood swings, which were known to really conflict with each other), and it is further evidence of the downward spiral of the last years of his brilliant but tragic life.
3. drumlord420

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   Jun 13th 2010 !⃝

   Radio Friendly Unit Shifter: Kurt's musical response to Nevermind's success.
   
   Kurt's song meaning from "Journals":
   
   Boy this will really get the A&R mans Bloodboiling.
   He'll be so Pissed! Clever.
   getting into the inner-me. Self-indulgent.
   way out there - boring to play live, though, uh. ( last statement scratched out)
4. anonymous

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   Jan 8th 2007 !⃝

   this song seems to be about cobains inablilty to work with and embrace the music industry as a whole and the corporate sonic(pop)icon geffen was trying to make him out to be. a probable take on this is why doesn't he like being a star? quote(did not want what i have got)and quote (what is wrong with me?)shows his indefference with his own abilities to deal with stardom, marriage, and life with addictions. this song defies the early 90"s music industry and kurt was not about to explain it in clear words. this song is(pop)radio unfriendly and career suicide with after-life in the underground scene. lyrics that are so sad,fragmented,disturbed,self defeating, and abstract found in the final nirvana album coupled with his suicide are tragic. maybe that is what he intended? but no one listened.
5. anonymous

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   Oct 23rd 2006 !⃝

   Shut up
   
   this song is about being a celebrity
   like celebritys are sapposed to have the answer
   and if you get it wrong, your screwed
   
   "i'm burried up to my neck in contridictionary fly's"
6. anavrin

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   Jan 10th 2004 !⃝

   According to Kurt this song is a throwaway. A bunch of random poetry lines thrown together. The title is a reference to Smells Like Teen Spirit and it's slick, radio-friendly sound.
   

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