"In late January 1994, Cobain, Novoselic, and Grohl entered Bob Lang's studio in Seattle for their final recording session. Following a long jam, they captured this powerful tune in one take, including the gut-wrenching vocal -- a spooky, ambient intro of echoed harmonics and a fractured guitar solo."
Jim DeRogatis
Spin magazine, June 2002, page 72
"Lyrically, the verses were tightly crafted, with a haunting, tormented chorus of 'You know you're right.' The first verse was a list of declarations beginning with, 'I would never bother you / I would never promise to / If I say that word again / I would move away from here.' One couplet -- that could only come from Kurt Cobain -- went: 'I am walking in the piss / Always knew it would come to this.' The second verse shifts to statements about a woman -- 'She just wants to love herself' -- and closes with two lines that have to be sarcastic: 'Things have never been so swell / And I have never been so well.' The plaintive wail in the chorus couldn't be clearer: 'Pain,' he cried, stretching the word out for almost ten seconds, giving it four syllables, and leaving an impression of inescapable torment."
Hole performed this song during their
Unplugged session.
News that mentions this song:
The studio version of the song was supposedly going to surface in May 2002. A fan in Europe claimed to have received it from a buddy, who was rumored to have obtained the song off of a CD with Probot material. (Probot is a Dave Grohl side project.) News of this traveled quickly and eventually the fan was contacted by Jim Barber, Courtney Love's manager and boyfriend.
On Saturday, September 21st, 2002 news that the song had leaked began to circulate on the Internet. A three minute and thirty-five second track suddenly sprang up on file trading programs around the world. On Monday, September 23rd, the song began to get airplay on radio stations around the world.
Charles Cross, author of
Heavier Than Heaven has been quoted as saying that a superior version of "You Know You're Right" was played for him while writing his book. At this time there is speculation that a superior mix of the song has been made. Some fans also suspect the leak was planned in order to gain free publicity and the leaked version is missing a verse.