Love and War: The Battle Behind the Lost Nirvana Recordings

Ironically, this is not a legal case about money, or so Love argues in the opening paragraph of her petition with the court. She doesn’t seek to change the percentages the various parties collect from Nirvana sales, and her attorneys have argued that once the case is settled, all sides will benefit financially from future Nirvana releases.

While the issue of who controls Nirvana is still being decided by a court, the parties are working on an out of court agreement that will see the release in the meantime of the often-talked about Nirvana box set. Universal has planned the set for the late fall, and most observers predict that it should still arrive by then. Among the tracks planned for the box set is “You know you’re right”, one of the tracks Nirvana cut during the January 1994 session at Robert Lang Studios and the band last complete recording.

Aside from the songs recorded at the January 1994 session, fewer then a dozen Cobain tunes exist that have not been issued in any form, and only a handful of them are more than demos. Most likely a multi-CD box set would have to include some of the band’s many alternative takes and live oddities since there isn’t a wealth of unreleased studio material.

All of which makes “You Know You’re Right” that much enticing. Similar in structure to “Heart-Shaped Box”, with quiet verses and a loud chorus, the song was performed only once in concert, in October 1993, and apparently forgotten until that January session. Adam Kasper, who produced the track, describes it as a “pretty cool tune”, while Krist Novoselic goes so far as to call it a “great song”. Even Dave Grohl, who rarely talks about Nirvana to the press, told the BBC it was a gem and should be on any new release.

On that matter, even Courtney Love is in agreement with Novoselic and Grohl. Her petition calls “You Know You’re Right” “an unpublished potential hit of extraordinary artistic and commercial value”. The fact that the two sides agree upon anything is at least one small ray of hope in a seven years war.