Polly (song)

"Polly" is a song by the 1980s/ 1990s grunge band, Nirvana. It is the sixth song on their 1991 album, Nevermind.

Meaning

According to Michael Azerrad's 1993 Nirvana biography Come As You Are, "Polly" was written by singer/ guitarist Kurt Cobain after reading a newspaper story about a female rape victim in Tacoma, Washington.

Related Topics:
1993 - Biography - Kurt Cobain - Rape - Tacoma, Washington

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The girl, 14, was abducted in 1987 while returning from a punk rock show, and was raped and tortured by her abductor. Cobain narrates the song from the rapist's point of view (he would do the opposite on In Uteros "Rape Me").

Related Topics:
1987 - Punk rock - In Utero - Rape Me

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Music critic Greil Marcus suggested that Cobain's "Polly" was a descendent of "Pretty Polly", a murder ballad perhaps a century old when Dock Boggs recorded it in 1927.

Related Topics:
Greil Marcus - Pretty Polly - Murder ballad - Dock Boggs

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