Nirvana: Where Did You Sleep Last Night? Meaning

Where Did You Sleep Last Night? Lyrics

My girl, my girl, dont lie to me
Tell me, where did you sleep last night?
In the pines, in the pines
Where the sun dont ever shine
I would shiver the whole night through

My girl, my girl, where will you go?
Im going where the cold wind...

1. anonymous

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   Jun 8th 2011 !⃝

   This song is sung by the woman's dead husband, whose ghost returns home to discover that she is no longer sleeping in their bed. Did she play a part in his death? Did an unknown lover? The husband's spirit is confined to the walls of their house and therefore can not learn the answer unless she reveals herself there.
2. anonymous

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   May 25th 2011 !⃝

   Leadbelly did not write the song. It's an old folk song, most likely with Appalachian roots, and was around for probably over 50 years before Leadbelly recorded it.
3. anonymous

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   Apr 11th 2011 !⃝

   There is no exact meaning to this song. I think its whatever you make it out to be. I for one believe its a song about an affair. I think 'I'd shiver the whole night through' means he doesnt understand how she could do that to him.
4. anonymous

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   Mar 22nd 2011 !⃝

   "In the pines, in the pines
   Where the sun dont ever shine"
   
   This line pretty much sums up the vast majority of this song. The girlfriend/other significant other was sleeping with someone else...I don't need to go any further with "where the sun doesn't shine" most of us guys already know what that is referring to, lol.
5. anonymous

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   Oct 29th 2010 !⃝

   This song isn't about love, it's about the US government's ongoing racism, theft and murder of american-indians.
   
   "The Pines" means the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, the "body that never was found" is referring to one of the many native american activists murdered by the FBI or by the "GOONS" group they funded to disarm the "AIM" group of American-Indian activists who were trying to prevent violent state incursions on their land and government theft of resources.
   
   For one article on the issue:
   http://www.isreview.org/issues/44/peltier.shtml
   
   Another song that makes a mention of the reservations is Ani Difranco's song "Self Evident", where she says:
   
   "so here's a toast to all the folks who live in Palestine
   Afghanistan
   Iraq
   El Salvador
   
   here's a toast to the folks living on the pine ridge reservation
   under the stone cold gaze of mt. Rushmore
   
   here's a toast to all those nurses and doctors
   who daily provide women with a choice
   who stand down a threat the size of Oklahoma City
   just to listen to a young woman's voice"
   
   listen to the song, and check out the other articles on the international socialist review website. It's tragic when the messages of songs get lost because the history behind them is 'inconvenient' for the government to teach in schools.
6. Werst

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   Oct 26th 2010 !⃝

   I think the person who sings is actualy dead. Her husband's head was found in a driving wheel, killed in a car accident. Now he lies in the casket "in the pines where the sun don't ever shine" and is jealous because his girl sleeps with another person.
7. JasmineStar

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   Sep 4th 2010 !⃝

   This song is one that is covered from Leadbelly on by many great blues artists, perhaps because of the depth of feeling. If Kurt would cover a song it is a classic choice. However there may be some emotional tone to this song that resonates from when in his childhood his mothers boyfriend was known for bashing the family and had hospitalized his mother, and it is said his mother drank to compensate. In a sense if a mother becomes emotionally detached or dead to her child while the victim of abuse and the child fears the mother will be killed completely, it would fit the stark lonely landscape of this song.
8. anonymous

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   Jul 19th 2010 !⃝

   I think that this song is about broken love.
   and every verse means something eles...
   verses 1 and 2 are the background or the dry plot.
   verse1- It begins with an honest concern for the health of his girlfriend/wife, he was wearied.
   verse2- the brake up- she leaves him and he tries to understand the reason.
   
   in verse 3 he's thinking that she "murdered" the romance.
   and it is the fantastic version of verse 4.
   "his head was found in a driving wheel"
   the driving wheels of a train "cut his head off"- it is a parody on the old western love story-a girl is tied to the rail and the hero saves her in the last second.
   the parody is that she kills him by tying him to the train rail.
   verse 4- he understands she is leaving him for another man- she cheated on him last night.
   the cold dark pines and the lack of sun reflects his pain from understanding that and the lost of the reason to live.
   
   verses 5 and 6 have no new meanings, but the way Kurt sings them showes us his fillings and emotions-
   he sings verse 5 gently, he still loves her and he tries to fix the realationship.
   he shouts verse 6- it shows his pain and anger, he collapse.
   
   also, he is going through the stages of gref but in the wrong order (denial ,Bargaining, Depression and anger) and that's why he can't get to the last stage- Acceptance.
   
   In the last verse he is calling for her from the pains
   "the pains, the sun ,the shine"- it sounds like he is there.
   "I will (instead of would) shiver..." he is in the called pines, shivering through the whole night.
9. anonymous

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   Aug 19th 2009 !⃝

   Well, I'm sure people have already figured this one out, but I'm going to have a crack at it about what I know about this here song.
   The original writer of this song is American Folk musician Huddie William Ledbetter, more commonly known as Leadbelly. Kurt made notion as Leadbelly to be their (Nirvana's) favorite musician. The song I beleive is about a man who questions his faithfulness. This song I beleive is reference to Leadbelly's wife Martha Promise Ledbetter, who Leadbelly beleived cheated on him when he was put in prison for "carrying a pistol."
10. anonymous

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    Aug 11th 2009 !⃝

    Dazza, the song was a remake. Thus, he couldn't have written it about anybody. Otherwise, the interpretation makes sense to me.
11. Nirvanarama

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    Jul 23rd 2009 !⃝

    This song has always confused me. Not at first I mean I always just thought that it was about a man who came in to his girlfriend cheating on him he was so upset he lost it and beat her. She flees and hides deep into the woods crying sobbing lost the man she was having an affair with finds her and being worried asks her where shes been. Shes riven. He tells her he's with her until the end and when they find the head of her husband rumors start to emerge her lover knows she did it and says hes going to be with her even at its darkest. Its a song about revenge true love and abuse. At least thats what i always thought until My shrink and i were talking and he told me to relook at the lyrics of that song and to tell him what they really meant. Ive been trying to search for a deepeer meaning, but as far as i saw it... its a song of love, betrayal, revenge, abuse, and support.
12. Dazza

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    Jun 18th 2009 !⃝

    You two are looking too deeply. you're always looking for the grimy, smut filled side. this song spoke to me because i feel the same way.
    This is MY interpretation ( tell me what you think)
    
    "My girl, my girl, don't lie to me,
    Tell me where did you sleep last night."
    
    This means you never tell me what wrong, i can feel you hurting, i want to help you.
    
    "In the pines, in the pines,
    Where the sun don't ever shine.
    I would shiver the whole night through."
    
    this means that you didn't sleep well last night.
    you have no light in your life. its a dark way to live.
    if it was "him" he would be shivering, she's so cold
    
    "My girl, my girl, where will you go?
    I'm going where the cold wind blows."
    
    these mean your going down a lonely path that only leads to more pain. it hurts me to stay and watch but i will always be here.
    
    "Her husband, was a hard working man,
    Just about a mile from here.
    His head was found in a driving wheel,
    But his body never was found."
    
    these mean what was good and stable in her life is dead and a distance away. a horrid accident many things are unexplained.
    
    Now this is a song written to his girlfriend. i believe that she was a party girl and drug abuser who was emotionally shut off to him. he constantly worried about her safety and because of this he believed that his life was filled with nothing but pain and a longing for closeness
    
    this song relates in many ways to "come as you are"
13. anonymous

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    Sep 24th 2008 !⃝

    This song probably had a impact on Kurt because of his previous relationships with women that could even go back to his mother.

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