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Producer Butch Vig immediately turned off the air conditioning and unplugged the phones to record Cobain right there on the couch. Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic had to add their parts later, struggling to play softly enough to match Cobain’s fragile, whispered performance. Legacy and The Batman

Cobain later admitted the song was more of a "fantasy" or emotional projection, imagining what his life would be like if he were a "total street person" dying of a terminal illness. He did, however, spend time sleeping in hospital waiting rooms and on friends' porches during that transient period. The Unconventional Recording nirvana_something_in_the_way_audio

The audio you hear on the album was famously difficult to capture because the full band couldn't get the "mood" right in the studio. Producer Butch Vig immediately turned off the air

The song saw a massive spike in popularity in 2022 after being featured prominently in the film The Batman . Director Matt Reeves stated that the song’s moody atmosphere helped inspire his version of a "recluse" Bruce Wayne. This led to the song debuting on the Billboard Hot 100 more than 30 years after its original release. He did, however, spend time sleeping in hospital

For years, the song was believed to be a literal account of a period in 1985 when Kurt Cobain was homeless and slept under the Young Street Bridge in his hometown of Aberdeen, Washington.

Biographers, including Charles Cross in Heavier Than Heaven , later debunked this, noting that the Wishkah River's tides would have swept anyone away who tried to sleep there.

Out of frustration, Cobain sat on a couch in the Sound City Studios control room and played the song on a cheap 12-string acoustic guitar that only had five nylon strings and wouldn't stay in tune.