Nirvana
Polly
Nirvana's Polly is among the darkest songs in the Nirvana catalog. The track appeared on the bands sophomore album, Nevermind. Cobain wrote "Polly" about an incident in Tacoma, Washington involving the kidnapping and rape of a 14-year-old girl in August 1987. Gerald Arthur Friend kidnapped the girl while she was leaving a rock concert, suspended her upside down from a pulley in his mobile home and raped and tortured her with a blow torch. Then he would drive around town with her trapped in his truck.
Gerald Friend was caught after the girl escaped from the back of his truck at a gas station. This was his second offense and had already served a 20 year sentence in prison for a similar crime in 1960. He was sentenced to 75 years but was released on parole after 20, and then 7 years later he did it again.
While the story itself is quite disturbing, Cobain’s artistic retelling is even more so as it presents things from the perspective of Gerald Friend himself. This requires the listener to acknowledge the perspective of the rapist, and brings to the surface many difficult images as Friend seems to be enjoying himself.
Polly wants a cracker
I think I should get off her first
I think she wants some water
To put out the blow torch
Polly said
Polly says her back hurts
She’s just as bored as me
She caught me off my guard
Amazes me the will of instinct
In an interview with NME magazine in 1991, Cobain touched on how society deals with rape.
Rape is one of the most terrible crimes on earth. And it happens every few minutes,” Kurt hisses. “The problem with groups who deal with rape is that they try to educate women about how to defend themselves. What really needs to be done is teaching men not to rape. Go to the source and start there.
I was talking to a friend of mine who went to a rape crisis centre where women are taught judo and karate. She looked out the window and saw a football pitch full of boys, and thought those are the people that should really be in this class.