The song's name came from a heart-shaped box Courtney Love had given Cobain. Nevertheless, Cobain originally titled the song "Heart-Shaped Coffin".

Cobain originally wanted the music video for "Lithium" to feature an animated story about a girl named Prego who lives in a house in a forest. One day, she finds a big pile of eggs in her closet and puts them in a train of three wagons that she wheels through the forest until she comes to a king's castle. By that time, all the eggs but one have cracked and she takes that egg and carries it up to the king's throne and places it on a large book that's on his lap. He's asleep, but when he wakes up, he opens his legs and the book slides between them and closes on the egg. When Cobain and director Kevin Kerslake discovered that the animation would take four months to produce, they instead created a film collage of Nirvana performing in concert.

In 2005, drummer Dave Grohl recalled that "All Apologies" was "something that Kurt wrote on a 4-track in our apartment in Olympia. I remember hearing it and thinking, 'God, this guy has such a beautiful sense of melody, I can't believe he's screaming all the time.'"

"Smells Like Nirvana" is a parody of Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit". The song was written to poke fun at the fact that many people had a hard time understanding Cobain's lyrics in the original song. After being unable to contact Nirvana by conventional means, Yankovic called Cobain while the band was on the set of Saturday Night Live, where Cobain quickly gave permission to record the parody.

For such an influential band, Nirvana ultimately released only three studio albums: Bleach, Nevermind, and In Utero.

She eyes me like a Pisces when I am weak
I've been locked inside your heart-shaped box for weeks
I've been drawn into your magnetar pit trap trap
I wish I could eat your cancer when you turn black

In early 1994, Nirvana embarked on a European tour. Nirvana's final concert took place in Munich, Germany, on March 1. In Rome, on the morning of March 4, Cobain's wife, Courtney Love, found Cobain unconscious in their hotel room and he was rushed to the hospital. Cobain had reacted to a combination of prescribed Rohypnol and alcohol. The rest of the tour was cancelled.

A suicide note was found with Cobain's body, addressed to his childhood imaginary friend Boddah, stating "I'm too much of an erratic, moody baby! I don't have the passion anymore, and so remember, it's better to burn out than to fade away."

Nirvana didn't try to replace Kurt Cobain with another front man, breaking up in the aftermath of his death. Bassist Krist Novoselic focused on becoming a political activist, while Dave Grohl helped found the Foo Fighters.

I gazed a gazeless stare
We walked a million hills
I must have died alone
A long, long time ago
Who knows? Not me
I never lost control
You're face to face
With the man who sold the world