Some many years ago, I sat down to figure out the chord progressions to the songs on Nirvana’s Nevermind album. I think there are a lot of curiously interesting ways that melody and harmony are treated in those tunes.

After figuring out a few songs, I started to notice a pattern in some of the chord progressions for the “B” sections, especially in the first half of the album. Take a listen to these snippets and see if you can hear a similarlity:

		Nirvana: “In Bloom”
		Nirvana: “Come As You Are”

What should be obvious is that the music goes back and forth between two chords that are a distance of a minor third apart. That is a common pattern in Nirvana’s music. For “In Bloom,” the chords are {C} and {Eb}, while for “Come As You Are,” the chords are {A} and {C}. Since “In Bloom” is in the key of {Bb major}, we can see that the chord progression goes II-IV, i.e. supertonic to subdominant. Yes, the supertonic has been changed to major instead of minor, but it really is not acting as an applied dominant. Minor chords are freely changed to major in the songwriting of Kurt Cobain.

Since “Come As You Are” is in {E minor}, then the {A} and {C} chords from that song are actually the supertonic to subdominant progression of the relative major ({G major}), just like we saw for “In Bloom.”

A very similar thing happens in “Lithium”:

Nirvana: “Lithium.”

Again, we have the characteristic alternation between two chords a minor third apart. This time, the chords are {G} and {Bb}. The song is in {D major}, so perhaps we can’t call this progression a II-IV, but I would like to propose that here, IV-bVI is substituting for II-IV. In the same way that “Come As You Are” moved to the relative major to start on the supertonic, “Lithium” moves to the relative major of the parallel minor. Seen this way, the chords in this excerpt also start on the supertonic.

A true minor supertonic to major subdominant appears in “Drain You.” Here, the alternating chords are {B} and {D} in the key of {A major}:

Nirvana: “Drain You.”

Nirvana’s use of the supertonic-subdominant progression is not seen as much on other albums. Perhaps its prevalence on Nevermind is part of what gives the album its more “pop” sound. I should mention, however, that the song “Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge on Seattle” off In Utero harkens back to the characteristic II-IV pattern. On this song, the chord toggling is not present; instead, the chords are woven into a longer harmonic progression:

Nirvana: “Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge on Seattle”

From looking at these tunes, the use of the supertonic as the starting chord for a contrasting section seems to be a fairly common technique. I have kind of lumped II-IV progressions in with IV-bVI progressions, but I think there is good reason to do so considering the similar way both harmonic progressions are handled.

As a final comment, I also noticed that the chord progressions for “Heart-Shaped Box” and “Territorial Pissings” are the same: I-bVI-IV. It’s simply a turned around version of the IV-bVI progression with a tonic thrown in. Just for fun, I made a mash up of the two songs. I guess you could call it “Heart-Shaped Pissings” or “Territorial Box”: